Frank Juarez doesn't have the campaign war chest to compete financially with the two front runners in this weekend's council race, but he has something none of the other candidates has - he knows Santa Monica as only a native can know his hometown.

"I can tell you where the pot holes are. I can tell you where the trash doesn't get picked up," said Juarez, whose family has lived in Santa Monica since 1937. "I know the guys who work in the city yards. I know their dads and uncles. I know the people."

And it's the people that Juarez, a GTE supervisor, in counting on this weekend.

"I would love to have all the endorsements my opponents have," he said, "but this is town politics. I have the endorsement of a lot of families."

In a race that has focused almost exclusively on housing and development, Juarez has tried to bring the debate back to the crime the continues to plague his Pico neighborhood.

It is a subject that hits home - literally. Last October, his nephews Michael and Anthony Juarez were gunned down in broad daylight inside a clothing store on busy Lincoln Avenue. They were two of 12 homicide victims in Santa Monica last year, five of them Latinos.

"You have youth killing youth over drugs because they have no jobs," Juarez said. "You have racial tensions and that takes time to fix. I know what it takes to create a dialogue. It's not going to be pretty, but it has to get started."

Under the leadership of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, Juarez says, rent control has taken center stage, to the neglect of other issues such as crime and drugs.

"SMRR is the slickest political machine," Juarez said. "They found uranium -- tenants -- and they appealed to them. What they did with it is an abuse of power. They're drunk with power. They are not friends of people of color."

Juarez acknowledges that with little money, his is an uphill battle.

"Fancy mailers, those help, but I don't have the money for fancy mailers," he said. "Don't be fooled by big money politics. Let's not focus on Democratic Party ties, developer ties. Let's talk about a qualified native who can offer diversity in thought and opinion."

Juarez, who has taken time off work to walk the precincts is heartened by the response. He says that 90 percent of the people he asks, put his campaign signs in their windows.

Besides, an upset victory seems in the stars, Juarez says, and he opens his wallet where a the tiny slip from a fortune cookie is neatly tucked above his license.

It reads: "You will be recognized and honored as a community leader."