FOR A WHILE LAST YEAR, I SEEMED TO RUN into former District Attorney Gil Garcetti every week. He was hyperactive in his son Eric’s successful campaign for the City Council, and wherever Eric, a dogged campaigner, turned up, so did Gil, his top adviser.
On one of those occasions, I asked the elder Garcetti what he wanted to do next in his own career. He said he wanted to be director of the Huntington Library.
It’s pretty uncommon, I thought, for someone pushing 60 to propose so picturesque a payoff to a public attorney’s career. I mean no disrespect to the current Huntington director when I say that Garcetti might have done well out there in San Marino, culling statues instead of statutes. Even if the Huntington board didn’t ask him in for an interview, however, who could blame Garcetti for wanting a challenge beyond his defined limits as a former elected official?