Mike Hernández

Mike Hernandez (born December 4, 1952 in Pleasanton California) is a political activist in the Los Angeles Latino community who organized students to participate in the Chicano Moratorium, helped register over 25,000 new Latino voters in one year and was the Founding Chair of Plaza de La Raza Head Start Inc. where he helped develop 17 Head Start Enters.

Elected in 1991 in a special election to complete the unfinished term of previous Councilmember Gloria Molina who had moved on to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Hernandez became only the fourth Latino elected to the Los Angeles City Council since the election of Edward Roybal in 1948. While in office Hernandez, much to the chagrin of his then council colleagues, often reminded his constituents and the Latino community at-large that his district was the result of a landmark court case mandating that a Latino district be created because of the gerrymandering that had occurred in previous decades.

While drawing much of his early electoral support from voters of the Northeast Los Angeles communities that made up much of his district, Hernandez represented some of the poorest areas of the city including MacArthur Park, Westlake and Pico Union. Regardless, Hernandez understood that each of the neighborhoods he represented were largely young immigrant communities that had been all but forgotten by civic leaders. With limited social infrastructure and almost no access to city resources Hernandez, a trained organizer, began to unite community leaders and together during his decade-long tenure between 1991 and 2001, either spearheaded or laid the groundwork for much of the transformations that have since occurred in what was once his district.

Shortly after his election, Hernandez quickly began to build the argument, as if one needed to be made, that his district was people rich and resource poor. In order to do this, Hernandez turned to the most recent census data and created a series of maps he deemed “the Zones of Need” that he released in the Fall of 1992.

This data acted as a launching point for much of the legislation Hernandez was to champion during his early years as a council member and gave weight to the argument that his district was being short-changed causing one writer to note about Hernandez:

Indeed, early in his tenure Hernandez was immediately challenged by the impending arrival of what was then referred to as the Pasadena Blue Line (now called the Pasadena Gold Line). Officials at the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC) had originally intended the line to traverse the Northeast Los Angeles communities of Highland Park, Cypress Park and Lincoln Heights at speeds upwards of 60 miles per hour. Moreover, plans for the line included the construction of an 18-foot ‘sound wall’, an above grade separation at North Figueroa Street and Marmion Way and limited stations along the line. An angry Hernandez who often noted that the five freeway off-ramps in his district were designed for commuters trying to pass through his communities rather than for the people who actually lived in them, publicly denounced the Blue Line Plans as more of the same. More importantly however, as the council representative for the area, Hernandez clearly understood his land-use discretion and that if the light rail was to traverse his district, then the residents of the impacted neighborhoods were going to have a voice in its development.

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Wikipedia