Rivals Fire at Hahn’s Record

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn came under fire for dragging his feet on everything from cleaning up the port to fixing intersections as the five leading mayoral candidates squared off Tuesday at a rambunctious environmental debate.

“Cars are idling on the freeways. Planes are idling at the airports. Ships are idling in the harbor. City Hall is just plain idling,” state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley) said as he and the other challengers accused the incumbent of acting late or not at all to confront the city’s major environmental challenges.

Hahn, in turn, defended his efforts to reduce traffic, modernize the airport and transform the departments overseeing the polluting harbor and water and power . And he sought to turn the tables on his opponents: one former Los Angeles police chief and three veterans of the state Legislature.

“The choice is clear. We can continue the momentum we’ve got right now or have the failed leadership that we see at LAPD and in Sacramento,” said Hahn, who is seeking a second term in the March 8 election.

The five candidates -- also including former Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and two former Assembly speakers, Bob Hertzberg and Antonio Villaraigosa -- took questions for an hour and a half Tuesday at an auditorium at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters sponsored the second debate to feature the top five mayoral candidates.

Historically, the environment has not been featured as prominently in mayoral politics as some other bread-and-butter issues, such as crime, schools and traffic.

But efforts to clean up polluted air and water have gained a higher profile in Los Angeles in recent years at the same time that local elected officials have raised the city’s commitment to battling pollution.

And on Tuesday evening, environmental stewardship became a potent vehicle for the mayoral candidates to debate who has shown more leadership in his political life.

Hahn repeatedly took credit for efforts to curb pollution from diesel-powered ships docked at the port, to cut the Department of Water and Power’s reliance on fossil fuels and to reduce smog by cutting traffic.

“We’re changing the direction of the Port of Los Angeles and the Department of Water and Power,” the mayor said.

But his opponents hit back, arguing that much of the environmental progress on Hahn’s watch came only after he was pressured to act.

Indeed, ships only began to turn off their polluting engines at the port because of a lawsuit filed by environmental groups in 2001.

And though environmentalists give the mayor credit for pushing the DWP to expand its use of renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar power, several of Hahn’s efforts came only after years of lobbying by clean-air advocates and indications the City Council might act without him.

In August, Hahn halted the city’s involvement in a massive and highly controversial coal-fired power plant under construction in Utah, but only after pressure from environmentalists.

On other environmental issues, meanwhile, the mayor took less of a lead than other city leaders, according to many environmentalists.

City Council members led the successful drive to win voters’ support for a historic $500-million bond measure in November to pay for storm water cleanup. Proposition O passed with 76% of the vote.

Earlier this year, the council and the city attorney pushed the city to settle a long-running lawsuit brought by Santa Monica BayKeeper alleging that raw sewage leaking from dilapidated municipal sewer pipes was polluting waterways.

The city finally agreed to fix its aging sewer lines.

“He only acts when he’s sued,” Villaraigosa said, charging the mayor with trying to take credit for things done by others. “His record is shameful.”

Hertzberg, Parks and Villaraigosa also went after Hahn for trying to eliminate the Environmental Affairs Department in his 2004-05 budget, a move the City Council blocked.

Parks, who repeatedly criticized Hahn for missing meetings of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, questioned how the mayor could claim credit for addressing traffic problems when he is only fixing 25 intersections a year.

Hahn responded that he was focusing on some of the busiest intersections in the city, which are used by millions of drivers.

At another point in the debate, Parks quipped: “The mayor has an answer to everything, but a solution to nothing,” drawing guffaws from a crowd of campaign supporters and environmentalists.

And all the challengers attacked Hahn’s $11-billion Los Angeles International Airport modernization plan for failing to advance a regional airport plan that would shift traffic to other airports in Southern California, such as the city’s airports in Palmdale and Ontario.

The mayor fired back that his plan to increase public transit to and from the airport would relieve traffic and improve air quality, and he said that he still would like to see a regional plan.

Hahn said he would even like to revisit the highly controversial idea of turning the former military airfield at El Toro in Orange County into a commercial airport.

To further reduce traffic at the port, Hahn said Tuesday that he favors taxing trucks leaving the harbor to encourage shippers to put more cargo on trains. After the debate, he clarified that he wants to tax shippers who use trucks rather than rail.

Though focused on environmental issues, Tuesday’s debate also provided several major candidates with the opportunity to emphasize familiar campaign themes. Alarcon continued to attack Hahn for catering to campaign contributors, and Hahn tried to tout his record on reducing crime and increasing housing.

The testiest exchanges of a debate filled with rhetorical jabs and counterpunches came over the question of City Hall’s relationship with the state Legislature, where three of Hahn’s opponents served.

Hahn, as he has done repeatedly on the campaign trail, accused Hertzberg and Villaraigosa of taking local property taxes when they drew up state budgets as the Assembly speakers in Sacramento.

“I’m tired of these guys from Sacramento telling us how much money they gave us after they’ve been taking it,” the mayor said at one point. “We’re getting back pennies on the dollar, and they want credit for it.”

Hertzberg responded that he was looking out for Los Angeles in Sacramento. “I guess you didn’t want the $145 million for the Orange line or the $250 million for the Expo line,” Hertzberg shot back, reminding the mayor of state support for a dedicated bus line and a light-rail line. And he attacked Hahn for his “radio silence” when Hertzberg was Assembly speaker, arguing that the mayor was not an effective advocate for the city.

Hertzberg, Villaraigosa and Alarcon -- who have earned high marks from environmental groups -- sought to remind voters of their support for the environment while they were in the Legislature.

When he was Assembly speaker, Villaraigosa played a pivotal role in passing a $2.1-billion park bond measure that voters approved in 2000.

Two years later, when he was speaker, Hertzberg gave important support to an even bigger $2.6-billion bond for parkland acquisition, though he did not author the legislation, as he claimed Tuesday.

Times staff writers Jessica Garrison, Jeffrey L. Rabin and Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report.

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Debates on TV

Viewers have several opportunities to watch reruns of the second debate between the major candidates for mayor of Los Angeles.

Today:

11:30 a.m.: Cable channel 36

6:30 p.m.: KCET-TV Channel 28 (excerpts)

7:30 p.m.: Cable channel 36

Thursday:

11:30 a.m.: Cable channel 36

Sunday:

11 a.m.: KABC-TV Channel 7

9:30 p.m.: Cable channel 36

Los Angeles Times