Kelly Candaele is a writer, filmmaker, teacher and elected official in Los Angeles.   For the past ten years Mr. Candaele has written extensively for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Irish America magazine and the International Herald Tribune. He traveled to Ireland three times with President Bill Clinton during Clinton’s attempts to push the Northern Ireland peace process forward.  His journalistic work has focused primarily on the conflict in Northern Ireland, Los Angeles political developments, history,  culture and baseball.  In addition to Northern Ireland he has worked as a journalist in Great Britain, Brazil, Sweden, Cuba, Spain, Australia and Vietnam.    Mr. Candaele has lectured at Hebrew University in Jerusalem about conflict resolution, and has been a lecturer in writing and politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles.   He is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Chico. 

Mr. Candaele has produced and directed a number of documentary films.  His documentary film A League of Their Own, about his mother’s years as a professional baseball player in the 1940s, was awarded an Area Emmy as part of a public television series.  He wrote the story for the Columbia Pictures feature film about the women’s league which stared Tom Hanks and Madonna.  He takes no responsibility for Madonna’s acting ability.  He also produced and wrote an award-winning documentary on the life of assassinated Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, which was narrated by actor Paul Newman.  Mr. Candaele’s most recent documentary explores the aftermath of the Northern Ireland peace agreement of 1998.  The film is titled When Hope & History Rhymed, from the poem by Irish Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney.  It Premiered at Paramount Studios in May, 2007.

As part of his film and journalism work Mr. Candaele has interviewed former German Chancellor Willy Brandt, Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bill Clinton, Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds, Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Cyrus Vance, Former United States Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, African National Congress President Oliver Tambo and Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume.  

In 1996 Mr. Candaele ran for and was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District.   He is one of seven members who oversee the nine-college district that enrolls over 130,000 students a year.  He served as President of the Board in 2000 and again in 2004.   He was reelected to a third four-year term as Trustee in 2005.  During his time on the board the district has passed to construction bonds that have raised over two billion dollars to rebuild campuses.  Mr. Candaele was one of the leaders of the board resolution that mandated that new buildings would be constructed according to LEEDS environmental sustainability standards and under a Project Labor Agreement. 

In 2005 Mr. Candaele was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to serve as a Commissioner for the $12 Billion Los Angeles City Employee Retirement System (LACERS).    He is a member of the Private Investments and Corporate Governance committees. 

Mr. Candaele has worked for many years with organized labor.  He started as an organizer with the Air Traffic Controllers Association, the successor organization to PATCO, which President Reagan busted in 1981.  He later worked for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) as a policy analyst and political organizer.    He also taught labor history and politics for several years in the Los Angeles Trade Tech College Labor Center, a program designed to build leadership capacity for rank and file union members.  

He is on the Executive Board of Kids in Sports and is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.  Mr. Candaele was on the Executive Board of the Coalition For Clean Air from 1997 to 2001. 

Mr. Candaele obtained a Masters Degree in Psychology and Counseling from California State University, Chico in 1979 and studied European History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.