A tale of two mayors

THE PLAN WAS OUTRAGEOUS. Raise homeowners’ trash collection fees to balance the city budget, and keep squeezing as much as possible to come up with the money to pay for 1,000 new cops. When then-Mayor James K. Hahn floated the proposal, the City Council shot it down in disgust without a vote. Mayor Antonio

Villaraigosa’s plan for his first budget, by contrast, was brilliant: Stop subsidizing trash collection for homeowners, and direct the additional money to pay for 1,000 new cops. The City Council loved it, and passed it unanimously.

Isn’t it the same plan? More or less. So why is Villaraigosa a hero and Hahn a heel? The answer lies somewhere at the mysterious intersection of leadership and luck.

It wasn’t Hahn’s fault that he was stuck in Washington, lobbying for the city, on 9/11. But disaster came and he wasn’t here. That just seemed to be Jim Hahn. He wasn’t here. It was in his personality. City Council members didn’t win political points by getting their photos snapped with the mayor, so they didn’t bother. State legislators felt no compulsion to be in the same room with him, so they weren’t.

On Tuesday, the day Villaraigosa’s budget passed without a whimper of dissent, former Hahn advisor Doug Dowie was convicted -- along with John Stodder Jr., his colleague at public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard -- of conspiring to bilk the city out of tens of thousands of dollars. Hahn’s administration was tagged with the aura of corruption, even though the ex-mayor has never been implicated in any of the scandals that helped doom his reelection campaign.

Ah, but Villaraigosa -- exciting, dynamic. And lucky. Unlike Hahn, he took office as the economy was booming. He could afford to look like a tough fiscal conservative when surging revenue from sales and property taxes limited the actual pain he had to inflict with his budget.

But there’s also something else, what Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), after meeting Villaraigosa on Capitol Hill, calls a “special shimmer.” Hahn lacked that shimmer. That may be one reason that Hahn gets little credit for turning around the perpetually troubled Los Angeles Police Department or for his role in stopping a move to break up the city. Perhaps we can now afford to send him a grudging salute, even if we’re relieved that he’s gone.

As for Villaraigosa, it may be worth pointing out that in his first year there has been an awful lot of talk -- about taking over the schools, running a subway to the sea, fixing traffic, improving public safety -- but not a lot of action. Until now.

This budget, which moved through the City Council on the strength of leadership as much as luck, raises the money to start hiring more police officers, extends library hours, adds traffic officers to jammed intersections. Not bad. If that’s what shimmer gets us, let’s have some more.