CITY HALL
From the activist disruption inside to the distancing of the pack on stage and the alleged assault that took place afterward, the first major City Council candidate forum Wednesday brought an early contentious edge to the election season.
A 44-year-old Glendale man, upset over a woman’s negative reaction to the idea of lowering the U.S. flag to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, allegedly assaulted her after the Glendale Homeowners Coordinating Council sponsored forum Wednesday night.
Police arrested Eric Dvanessian on misdemeanor battery charges after he allegedly followed frequent City Hall critic Evelyn Hanson, 53, out of the election forum at the Central Library, where the two got into a verbal argument before he “grabbed her face and pushed her to the ground,” according to a police report.
His case before the county district attorney’s office is pending a Glendale police investigation.
Outspoken rent control activist Rita Younikian and a handful of her supporters disrupted the forum earlier in the evening when they entered armed with handwritten signs calling for tenant assistance.
When Margaret Hammond, immediate past president of the council, approached the group about quieting down, Younikian raised her voice and claimed she was being pushed, interrupting the forum on stage.
Candidates largely responded to the question of whether they would support lowering the flag to commemorate the Armenian Genocide with impunity almost as soon as it was asked.
Council candidate Michael Teahan, who is also president of the Glendale Homeowners Coordinating Council, said Thursday that questions at the forum appeared to reflect “elements of the community that still want to inflame old grudges, and that’s unfortunate.”
Among the field of 12 candidates, three of them incumbents, the disparity between those who had clearly defined platforms, and those who did not, was an inescapable hallmark of the Glendale Homeowners Coordinating Council’s forum at the Central Library Wednesday night.
Several of the candidates at times admitted to having little to no knowledge of mobility plans, utility taxes, or the interplay between staff and elected officials at City Hall — if they even answered the questions at all.
Still, others had prepared bullet points on parkland deficiencies and traffic safety, and groomed positions on everything from union influence to a possible business license tax.
