Meet Your City Council President

Monday's L.A. Times included a rather nice profile of L.A. city council member Eric Garcetti, who convenes his first meeting as the council's new president on Wednesday.

Garcetti was raised in the flatlands of Encino in a staunchly Democratic Party household. His father, Gil Garcetti, was a descendant of Mexican immigrants and a longtime prosecutor who in 1992 became Los Angeles County's district attorney, serving two terms.

In school, Eric Garcetti excelled and emerged with an academic record that is unmatched at City Hall. At Columbia University, he studied urban planning and political science, earning a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's in international relations.

Later, as a Rhodes scholar, he attended Oxford University and the London School of Economics and began work on a yet-to-be defended doctoral thesis on nationalism in the African nation of Eritrea.

After he finished his schooling, his father urged Garcetti to pursue a career in composing jazz and Broadway music.

"I told him, 'Let me offer you something few parents would. Why not take two or three years off and focus on your music?' " said the elder Garcetti. " 'If it turns out that you have the talent and the breaks, then great. If not, so what, you're 29 or 30 and you have your Rhodes scholarship.' By then, I think he really wanted to be involved" in politics.

Yeah, I had to look up Eritrea in the atlas as well.

Garcetti hopes to restore some lustre to the council, which has gone through some bad press as of late. And his key issues should keep things busy: Traffic and mass transit, housing and the homeless, and more police officers.

The L.A. Times article misses one tidbit: Garcetti hosts his own occasional food show on Los Angeles' public access Channel 35. "Flavors of L.A. follows Eric as he tours some of the city's vast cuisines. The second episode of "Flavors of L.A." airs this month, he writes on his blog:

In this episode, we tour Jan Perry's great Downtown-to-South LA district and taste great tea, authentic Oaxacan cuisine, and some amazing Hawaiian desserts. The show will run again on January 20th and 10:00 pm; on January 23 at 11:00 am and 8:00 pm; and on February 3 at 10:00 pm.

Given the City Council's term limits, I see the Food Network in Garcetti's future.