Neighborhood Snyders

Termite Snyder was our neighborhood celebrity during the 1950s.  His race cars sat in the corner lot next to his home where Figueroa Street crosses Yosemite Drive.  The cars were juiced-up jalopies and late-model stock cars that along with his house were all painted a two-tone white and shit brown.  For anybody pulling up to a stop at Fig and Yosemite, the collection of color-coordinated cars and house made for a real head turner.  Termite Snyder was a hard charger on the track and once accomplished the unprecedented feat of winning all three races on the program two weekends in a row with the final race being thirty laps.   

There were three active dirt tracks operating in those days within Los Angeles County.  Events featured stock cars and midget racers and were promoted by J. C. Agajanian.  In addition to traditional racing formats, figure-eight races and destruction derbies were offered.  Silver Dollar Day was held at the Gilmore track where admission was only one dollar if paid in silver and the purse presented to the winner of each race was in silver dollars.

The races from the Ascot Speedway in Gardena were broadcast live on local television channel 5.  Dick Lane was the commentator, color man, pit crew interviewer and did the commercials.  Nicknamed "leather britches" for a character he played on the Spade Cooley Show he also was the TV announcer for the roller derby and wrestling from the Olympic Auditorium.  Lane was known for his volume, an overbearing persona and frequent shouts of "Whoaaa Nelly!" long before anyone had ever heard of ABC's Keith Jackson.

The other prominent Snyder in our neighborhood was Arthur K. Snyder.  He was immortalized in the TV series Hill Street Blues where the character of Arnold Detweiller, a drunken and corrupt politician, was portrayed by Michael Fairman as an homage to Snyder.

Snyder went from being a Lincoln Heights gang member as a teenager to serving eighteen years as a member of another gang - the Los Angeles City Council.  During the weeks leading up to each election he sent out cars mounted with loudspeakers blasting away to crawl up and down the residential streets of Mount Washington, El Sereno, Highland Park and Eagle Rock.  After he left the City Council his career as a lobbyist flamed out when he faced charges for a scandal involving campaign money laundering that resulted in misdemeanor convictions and the suspension of his law license. 

From the very beginning of his career in 1967 as the East Los Angeles seat on the City Council he was continually fending off personal, political and legal challenges. 
  • At the age of forty-one and a member of the City Council he eloped with a nineteen-year-old staff aide.
  • Norma Tripodi, his Chief of Staff, was killed when the ambulance she was driving to Zamora, Mexico as a donation was blown off the road a hundred miles below the border.
  • Snyder survived two separate recall elections. 
  • An ugly child custody battle produced allegations of Snyder abusing his wife and child.
  • The Monterey Hills residents went ape shit when he capriciously replaced the name of Hermon Ave with the current "Via Marisol" in honor of his three-year-old daughter Erin-Marisol.
  • Snyder was involved in seven traffic accidents from 1972 to 1980 and faced trial for a DUI that ended in a hung jury.
  • He was removed from both the Coastal Commission and the chair of the City Planning Commission for ethical violations.
  • He admitted guilt and paid a fine for accepting $142,000 in rent from an agency to which he had approved granting public funds.

The final straw came while performing his duties as a political lobbyist when he was discovered to have funneled money to a "network of local and state officials."  This is of course what is done by all lobbyists on behalf of their clients in order to influence legislators.  None of those accepting the money got into trouble – just Snyder for using an unorthodox method for delivery.  It wasn't so much what he did as it was how he did it.  Christ sakes, distributing money to politicians by an unauthorized means might look like a bribe.