City Hall to Be the Scene of Another Coming of Age

Twenty-six-year-old Alex Padilla isn’t even close to being the youngest person elected to the Los Angeles City Council.

That record is still held by Rosalind Wyman, who was elected in 1953 at 22, fresh out of college.

“He’s an old-timer at 26,” joked Wyman, a Bel-Air resident who is now a member of the Democratic National Committee and was on the panel that picked Los Angeles to host the party’s 2000 presidential convention.

Her advice to the new kid on the block: Work hard, be open to compromise and be patient when confronted with resistance from much older elected officials and bureaucrats.

“I had a lot of problems,” Wyman recalled. “Most of the people at City Hall were old enough to be my father or grandfather. You have to prove yourself to them and get along.”

Two of Padilla’s soon-to-be council colleagues--John Ferraro, 74, and Joel Wachs, 60--have been on the council longer than Padilla has been alive. Padilla said he’s not worried. “I know it’s going to take some work to adjust, but I’m up to that challenge.”

Wyman was not merely young--only a year past the era’s voting age--but also a woman entering a male-dominated world. Centers of power like the exclusive Jonathan Club were off-limits to her.

And while Padilla enjoyed the endorsements of Mayor Richard Riordan and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Wyman beat the president of the Board of Public Works, a mayoral appointee who was endorsed by The Times. Wyman, like Padilla, was living with her parents at the time. She won election largely on a youth campaign. She was president of USC’s chapter of the Young Democrats Club. “On weekends, young Democrats from all over the state would come to Los Angeles to campaign with me,” she recalled.

Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt also traveled to Los Angeles to support Wyman.

At City Hall, Wyman said, she faced skepticism when she was first elected from the 5th Council District in West Los Angeles.

“They weren’t sure of me. I had just come off a college campus,” she said. “I learned that compromise is very important. If you can get a little bit done the first year, you can build on it in the next year. I thought like a lot of young people. I wanted to get it all the first year.”

She recalled being humbled a few months after taking office when she decided to fight a mayoral appointment to the city Library Commission whom she characterized as “someone who wanted to burn books.”

“I got one other vote,” Wyman said, laughing.

Wyman wasn’t discouraged. She was reelected twice.

Like Padilla, L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky was also elected to the council at 26.

Yaroslavsky’s advice: “Don’t forget where you came from and be your own man. And remember: Regardless of his age, Alex Padilla has the same number of votes on the council as John Ferraro has.”