Robert C. Farrell (born October 1, 1936) is a politician who was a member of the Los Angeles City Council from 1974 until 1991. Previously, he was a journalist and newspaper publisher.
Biography
Farrell was born in
Natchez, Mississippi
Natchez ( ) is the county seat of and only city in Adams County, Mississippi, United States. Natchez has a total population of 14,520 (as of the 2020 census). Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, ...
, on October 1, 1936, and moved with his family to
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat, seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County and the second largest city within the New Yo ...
, before settling in Los Angeles, where he attended
Los Angeles High School
Los Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are royal blue and white and the teams are called the Romans.
Los Angeles High School is a pub ...
, graduating in 1954. He enlisted in the Navy and in 1956 was promoted to
midshipman
A midshipman is an officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada (Naval Cadet), Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Af ...
. After his service, he received a Navy scholarship to earn a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...
in 1961. He returned to UCLA in 1962, where he studied journalism.
Farrell began his journalistic career as a reporter for the black-oriented ''
California Eagle
The ''California Eagle'' (1879–1964) was an African-American newspaper in Los Angeles, California. It was founded as ''The Owl'' in 1879 by John J. Neimore.
Charlotta Bass became owner of the paper after Neimore's death in 1912. She owned and ...
'' newspaper and on the ''
Los Angeles Sentinel
The ''Los Angeles Sentinel'' is a weekly African-American owned newspaper published in Los Angeles, California. The paper boasts of reaching 125,000 readers , making it one of the oldest, largest and most influential African-American newspapers ...
''. He was also a correspondent for ''Jet'' magazine. In 1966 he published his own newspaper in Watts, the ''Star-Review.'' He also helped research and prepare a UCLA report on hard-core unemployment in
South Los Angeles
South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown.
It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as ...
Farrell's first involvement in political life was in the Johnson-Humphrey Presidential campaign of 1964, and in 1970 he was statewide black communities coordinator in John Tunney's U.S. Senate race. In 1971 he was deputy minority communities director on the national staff of
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American historian and South Dakota politician who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 pre ...
, who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He next worked for Tom Bradley's mayoral campaigns.
City Council
Elections
Farrell was employed as deputy to 8th District City Councilman
Billy G. Mills
Billy G. Mills (born 1929) is a retired Los Angeles Superior Court judge and a former Los Angeles City Council member, serving from 1963 to 1974. He was one of the first three African-Americans elected to the council.
Biography
Mills was born on ...
, and when Mills was appointed as a Superior Court judge in 1974, Farrell was elected to succeed him. In that era (1975), the district "ran in a north-south line in
South-Central Los Angeles
South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown.
It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as a ...
, from Adams and Jefferson Blvds. on the north, to Normandie and Central Avenue on the west, 118th St. on the south, and Arlington and Van Ness on the west." It suffered "some of the worst crime, unemployment and housing problems in the city."
Farrell served for seventeen years altogether, although he did face one
recall election
A recall election (also called a recall referendum, recall petition or representative recall) is a procedure by which, in certain polities, voters can remove an elected official from office through a referendum before that official's term of of ...
—in 1978—and was threatened with another ten years later.. Recall proponents criticized Farrell for "dirty streets and alleys" and a controversial remark he had made the previous year supposedly indicating disregard for the rights of senior citizens. He beat the 1978 recall threat by 9,263 votes to 5,165 The second recall attempt, in 1988, failed when not enough signatures were gathered to put the question on the ballot.
Positions
=Liberal
=
Farrell was noted as a liberal who believed in an "active, interventionist role for government." This, it was said, distinguished him from other African-American council members—"
Gilbert Lindsay
Gilbert William Lindsay (November 29, 1900 – December 28, 1990), also known as Gil Lindsay, was a Los Angeles, California, politician who worked his way up from City Hall janitor to become the city's first black City Council member and one of i ...
private sector
The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government.
Employment
The ...
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal Police, police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the thir ...
to end what he considered racism in the department, and he urged an investigation of the controversial " choke hold" used by the police. But he also waged what was called a "personal war on crime and violence," and he said that "there is more to an anti-crime fight than law enforcement." For example, he called for an honor farm where convicted youths could earn money to compensate their victims. He thought of a municipal lottery to finance an anti-crime unit, and he advocated closing
Nickerson Gardens
Nickerson Gardens is a 1,066-unit public housing apartment complex at 1590 East 114th Street in Watts, Los Angeles, California. Nickerson Gardens is the largest public housing development west of the Mississippi River and was the first home of ma ...
and other crime-ridden
public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, d ...
projects.
At one point, Farrell had to stand and apologize to members of the Southside Serial Killer police task force for questioning whether the "best and the brightest" had been assigned to tracking down the murderer of eighteen women in
South Los Angeles
South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown.
It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as ...
between 1983 and 1985.
Farrell wrote a proposal for a special property tax that would be levied on South Los Angeles residents to pay for additional police, but after public opposition developed, he changed his mind and said he would no longer work for it, Proposition 7 on the June 1987 ballot.
=South Africa
=
Farrell was a consistent critic of the
Apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
regime of South Africa in the 1980s, and he used his position to promote those who championed the freedom of Nelson Mandela. Farrell also played a leading role for the city of Los Angeles to divest from South Africa, and he pushed for the city to deny government contracts to corporations that had ongoing businesses in Apartheid South Africa. Upon the passage of divestiture, Farrell said "This is one where all of us are just doing ourselves and our nation and our city proud." He was subsequently thanked by Archbishop
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 193126 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbish ...
for his efforts. In 1986, Farrell accompanied Rev.
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson ( né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senato ...
and a delegation of international diplomats and elected officials on a trip to Africa to urge an end to Apartheid.
=Other
=
Fluoridation. Farrell was among the majority of the ten City Council members who in 1974 voted in favor of fluoridating the city's water supply. Five were opposed.
Housing. The councilman stressed the need to improve existing dwellings, rather than to build new housing. "What we can count on is what we can see and what we can touch," he said in 1979.
Middle East. On a visit to Israel in 1984, Farrell warned that the expulsion of a group of African-American immigrants known as the
Black Hebrews
Black Hebrew Israelites (also called Hebrew Israelites, Black Hebrews, Black Israelites, and African Hebrew Israelites) are groups of African Americans who believe that they are the descendants of the ancient Israelites. Some sub-groups belie ...
, as threatened by an official, "would produce resentment in America's black communities and would damage Israel's standing in American public opinion." Along with Compton Mayor Walter R. Tucker and three other U.S. mayors, he made a trip to Saudi Arabia in 1988, funded by the Association of Arab-American University Graduates. The trip was briefly controversial when it was erroneously reported that he had not filed the proper financial documents with the city concerning the visit.
Development. Despite the opposition of residents who claimed the project would destroy a block of historic homes in North University Park, Farrell supported and in 1987 voted for a shopping center south of
Adams Boulevard
Adams may refer to:
* For persons, see Adams (surname)
Places United States
* Adams, California
*Adams, California, former name of Corte Madera, California
* Adams, Decatur County, Indiana
* Adams, Kentucky
*Adams, Massachusetts, a New England t ...
between Vermont and Menlo avenues. He acknowledged that he had received "several thousand dollars" in political contributions from the developers "over the years" but denied that "defenseless homeowners" were being exploited.
Accusations
In December 1987 the ''Los Angeles Herald-Examiner'' published a series of stories that alleged Farrell improperly provided numerous public benefits to a small social service agency controlled by his wife in an apparent attempt to satisfy his alimony obligations to her (during this period Farrell and his wife, Essiebea, were in the middle of their divorce).
The first of these stories was published on December 4. These stories revealed Farrell had arranged for his wife's agency, the Improvement Association of the Eighth District (IAED), to receive a quarter of a million dollar gift of real estate from Security Pacific Bank. The bank originally notified Mayor Tom Bradley's office that it was proposing to give the property (a branch office and an adjoining parking lot in Farrell's council district) to the city. When Farrell learned of the proposal, he persuaded the bank to donate the properties instead to IAED.John Schwada, "Farrell Voted Ex-Wife's Agency Over $100,000," ''Los Angeles Herald-Examiner'', December 15, 1987, p. A-1 Shortly after that gift was completed Farrell claimed he needed a new field office to serve his constituents; he then proceeded to arrange for the city to lease the same former Security Pacific properties from IAED for this purpose. Although Farrell claimed otherwise, several city officials involved in the lease deal said Farrell never disclosed to them that the lease was with his wife's agency.John Schwada, "Group Tied to Farrell Repays $8,400 Rent," ''Los Angeles Herald-Examiner'', December 5, 1987, p. A-1 The city paid IAED $2000 per month to rent the former bank building and $400-a-month for the parking lot. The ''Herald-Examiner'' investigation also discovered IAED sold the parking lot to a developer shortly after acquiring it from Security Pacific, and yet IAED continued to receive rent from the city for that property for 21 months after that sale. The day after that story appeared, IAED reimbursed the city $8,400 for the rent it had improperly received from the parking lot deal.
Other public funds went to IAED from the city, including a $50,000 federal grant approved by the City Council; Farrell was chairman of the council's grants committee at the time. Farrell also put two of Essiebea's sisters and his daughter on the City Hall payroll for different periods, and he funneled $53,500 of his campaign funds to IAED. Farrell told the ''Herald-Examiner'': "There's no scheme....It would be foolish, absolutely foolish, for me to do that."
In the middle of this controversy, Farrell, joined by local African-American leaders, held a news conference on the First Street steps of City Hall where he claimed the "attacks" on him were part of a wider, national effort by a white-dominated media to marginalize outspoken African-American leaders like himself. During this period, a recall effort against Farrell was also ongoing, led by Farrell's own African-American constituents and fueled in part by the many disclosures about Farrell's misconduct in office.
Despite Farrell's protestations, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner opened a "review" of Farrell's conduct, as revealed in the ''Herald-Examiner'', that eventually became a full investigation. (Also see, "DA Takes Closer Look at Farrell's Aid to Ex-Wife's Agency," ''Los Angeles Herald-Examiner'', December 16, 1987, p. A-8).
In Feb. 1991, three years after the stories first broke, Reiner's office dropped its investigation. "Farrell's recent announcement that he would not run for his 8th District council seat in the April 9 election had no bearing on the investigation, said district attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons. She declined to say whether Farrell's official actions constituted an appearance of a conflict of interest. ′We make a determination about whether the law has been violated,′ Gibbons said. ′It is up to others to make moral judgments.′"Glenn F. Bunting, "Farrell Cleared on Conflict of Interest Charge Investigation, ''Los Angeles Times'', February 6, 1991, p. B-3
State Assembly race
In 1990, he suffered an upset defeat when he lost to Marguerite Archie-Hudson in his bid to represent the 48th district of the California State Assembly. The seat was previously held by
Maxine Waters
Maxine Moore Waters (née Carr; born August 15, 1938) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 1991. The district, numbered as the 29th district from 1991 to 1993 and as the 35th district from 1993 to 2013, inc ...