Former Assemblyman Wally Knox is vying for the soon-to-be-vacant Council District 4 seat, which covers the vast majority of the district he represented in the Assembly from 1994 to 2000.

After being termed out, he ran for state Senate, eventually losing in the primary to Sheila Kuehl. Since then, Knox founded a consulting firm that works with unions on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and received a master’s degree in econometric sociology at UCLA.

Knox said he has never run for Los Angeles City Council, but he feels that L.A. is at a crossroads — in that city leaders are in the process of restoring city services although a financial storm is on the horizon.

“That creates a real opportunity for working on positive measures that are going to restore services to neighborhoods and at the same time, working on matters of high public policy to lay the groundwork for the next half a century of governance in Los Angeles,” he said.

Knox, who served on the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees for seven years, said it’s no secret that the city faces pension issues, and it still has a “long way to go” before solving the problem.

“That’s been discussed for a solid decade now,” he said, adding that the progress has been “incremental at best.”

Along those lines, the city also has healthcare costs that it must address, Knox said. He said rising healthcare costs exacerbates the city’s pending pension problems.

“Those are extremely tough issues to grapple with, but if we can … we will stabilize the city’s governance for half a century,” Knox added.

He also hopes to continue the city’s progress in restoring services after so many years of decline. Knox said it is imperative that officials show the public that they can do the basics and do them well.

The former Assembly member said he enjoyed working with neighborhood organizations to improve the quality of life in those areas while serving in Sacramento. Instead of saying that neighborhood issues are not legislative problems, Knox said he made “enormous” progress fixing local dilemmas, such as a prostitution issue on Sunset Boulevard that was affecting children’s ability to walk to school.

“I take the neighborhood issues very seriously,” he added.

Knox said he has lived in the district for many years, specifically in the Los Feliz and Larchmont areas. He acknowledged the large amount of developments proposed for the district, and said he would work to mitigate any issues created from several projects coming to fruition at the same time.

“Every neighborhood has a different configuration, a different street plan, and you can’t assume that a cookie cutter approach … is going to solve those kind of problems,” Knox said. “It is an enormous amount of time and effort.”

He said the new council member will need to weigh the importance of economic development against the need to protect neighborhoods. Knox said neighborhood groups’ concerns about development impacting their areas are “absolutely legitimate,” and yet, the city needs a “thriving” economy.

“We all know that it’s very, very important to get out of this recession the best we can,” he said. “What is needed is the kind of leader that relishes working with people to solve those problems, as opposed to, and I’m not naming any names here, attempting to avoid those issues and somehow escape responsibility or blame. …It’s really hard to do and that is one of the reasons some political leaders just don’t lead. It’s hard to do.”

One of the more controversial projects in the pipeline, the Millennium Hollywood project, is not in Council District 4, but could affect residents that the new council member will represent. Knox said he would like to see a thorough seismic investigation of the proposed project site.

“That needs to be moved forward on a very rapid, rapid basis,” he said.

Knox said he would be pleased to represent the district on the city council, especially considering that he has lived in the area for many years.

“I’m in love with the district. …This is where we raised our two daughters,” he said. “Our whole adult lives have been lived in the district. To represent it in city council and to help the district thrive and prosper would be an absolute joy.”

Thus far, a total of nine candidates have begun campaigning for the seat that will be vacated when LaBonge is termed out in 2015. They are Tara Bannister, Teddy Davis, Sheila Irani, Knox, John Nelson Perron Jr., Joan Pelico, Carolyn Ramsay, Steve Veres and Oscar Winslow.