Hahn Takes Jabs at His Opponents

Striking a pugilistic stance in his final encounter with his top four opponents before next week’s election, Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn on Monday derided them during a 90-minute debate as “Sacramento politicians” and questioned their commitment to public safety.

Hahn, who has been the target of constant jabs by his main challengers for the last two months, punctuated the otherwise congenial forum with several attacks on his rivals. The mayor’s aggressive posture came as a new Times poll shows him neck-and-neck with Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa and former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg just a week before next Tuesday’s election.

“If you want leadership in this city, I’m your guy,” Hahn said at the end of the debate, pointing to himself emphatically.

The debate, which was sponsored by KCBS-TV Channel 2, KCAL-TV Channel 9 and the Citywide Alliance of Neighborhood Councils, was originally scheduled to air live, but station executives delayed its broadcast for a day. Instead, KCBS aired post-Oscar coverage by “Entertainment Tonight” and plans to broadcast the forum at 6:30 p.m. today.

While his opponents spent previous debates piling on criticism of the Hahn administration, they were more restrained Monday, focusing on their plans for combating crime, improving traffic and strengthening neighborhood councils, among other measures.

But Hahn, resorting to a line he has used frequently, mocked Villaraigosa, Hertzberg and state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley) as “Sacramento politicians” and blamed them for the city’s budget woes.

“Each year that I’ve been mayor, we’ve had upwards of $60 million transferred from your property taxes up to Sacramento to fix their budget mess, and Antonio Villaraigosa and Bob Hertzberg and Richard Alarcon are part of that problem that’s causing the problem here,” he said, thrusting his finger in their direction.

A few minutes later, Hahn went after Villaraigosa and Councilman Bernard C. Parks for recently voting against placing a measure on the ballot that would have asked voters to increase the city’s sales tax to pay for more police officers.

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” the mayor said. “There’s some vicious, violent predators out in our community, and they need to be caught. They need to be arrested and they need to be put in jail.”

Villaraigosa shot back at Hahn, recalling the charged campaign the two men waged in the mayor’s race four years ago.

“I’ve been called worse than ‘Sacramento politician,’ ” he said. “In fact, I’ve been called worse by him. I think what people are looking for is not the blame game, blaming Sacramento politicians for our problems....

“I think what we’re looking for is someone that can get the resources from Sacramento and Washington, D.C., here in Los Angeles, to get traffic moving again, to put more cops on the street, instead of the blame game that you have heard for four years now.”

Hahn’s forceful demeanor was a departure from his mild manner in past debates. It came as the new Times poll showed that Hertzberg has gained support from whites, San Fernando Valley voters, Republicans, conservatives, moderates and Jewish voters -- the same constituencies that helped Hahn win the mayor’s office in 2001.

On Monday, Hahn appeared to make a bid for those voters with his tough talk on crime and sharp denunciation of illegal immigration, a topic on which he usually offers a measured assessment.

Saying he does not blame immigrants for seeking a better life, Hahn nevertheless said illegal immigration hurts local workers.

“People are flooding our borders because the federal government won’t do its job,” the mayor said, his voice rising. “And people are basically being invited here by all the employers who will hire illegal aliens in this country and depress our wages and ruin our economy.”

Later, Hahn defended his sharp criticisms of his rivals, saying he has been the subject of relentless attacks.

“They’ve been throwing more mud at me than we’ve seen slide down the hillsides of Los Angeles the last two weeks,” he said after the debate.

Parks and Villaraigosa said Hahn was bridling from critiques of his record. “I think it’s time to take responsibility for it,” Villaraigosa said.

The candidates, however, spent most of the evening offering similar responses to queries from the audience of neighborhood council members about how they would deal with the city’s trash, housing, homeless and other matters.

Still, each sought to emphasize a distinct style.

For his part, Hertzberg did his best to stress his passion for the city, often gesturing wildly. When asked what he would tell parents whose children were exposed to gangs while walking to school, the Sherman Oaks lawyer sighed, calling it “gut-wrenching.”

“You tell them that I’m going to give it everything I’ve got, that I’m not going to let it go, that I take your life seriously,” he said, clenching his fist and waving it in the air.

“I’m going to really engage in the most energetic, passionate way that I can, because I care about you, and I’m not going to let this happen to you.”

Parks, a former police chief, struck a pragmatic tone in his answers. When asked about a new Los Angeles Police Department policy regulating when officers can fire at a moving vehicles -- a response to the recent death of a 13-year-old boy -- he cautioned that there is no way to eliminate controversial shootings.

“As long there are human beings working as police officers and there are human beings out in the community that are in dynamic, dangerous situations, you’re going to have at some point in time a mistake, an overreaction or even an officer doing the right thing that may look bad,” he said.

Alarcon, meanwhile, continued to cast himself as a populist who will wrest power away from developers and give residents control over their community.

“This is what makes me distinctly different than the other candidates because I want the neighborhood councils to be strong,” he said.

At one point, Alarcon mocked his opponents’ promises to expand public transportation as “fanciful,” saying they might as well pledge to build a light rail line to Santa Catalina Island.

Earlier in the day, Hertzberg called on Hahn to fire five city commissioners -- all labor leaders whose unions have spent money supporting the mayor’s reelection effort.

Hertzberg said the five were exploiting a “loophole you can drive a truck through” in a city law passed last spring that prohibits commissioners from soliciting contributions for local campaigns.

By raising money from union members for their independent expenditure campaigns on behalf of Hahn, the commissioners essentially were engaged in fundraising for the mayor, Hertzberg said.

So far, local unions have poured more than $540,000 into efforts to persuade their members and voters to support Hahn or Villaraigosa.

Unlike the candidates, who have strict restrictions on the amount of money they can raise and spend, outside groups such as labor unions can legally spend unlimited amounts to influence the campaign, as long as they do not coordinate with the candidates.

The latest expenditure was reported Monday, when the political action committees for two locals of the Plumbers and Steamfitters union said that they would spend $13,000 on mailers backing Hahn.

“Jim Hahn should not be having these people sit on commissions and raising money and campaigning and endorsing him like he’s done so far during this election,” Hertzberg said at a news conference at his Eagle Rock campaign office.

He singled out Miguel Contreras, an airport commissioner who heads the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; Sid Stolper, a water and power board commissioner and business manager of Southern California Pipe Trades District Council No. 16; Sergio Rascon, a member of the Los Angeles Convention and Exhibition Center Authority and business manager of the Southern California District Council of Laborers Local 300; Julie Butcher, president of the Quality and Productivity Commission and general manager of the Service Employees International Union Local 347; and Tyrone Freeman, a fire commissioner and president of SEIU Local 434B.

Butcher, who was appointed to her commission post by a former City Council member, noted that she is not a Hahn appointee. She also said she did not do fundraising for her local’s independent expenditure effort, saying that union members voluntarily contribute anywhere from 50 cents to $3 per pay period for the campaign.

Added Rascon: “If there was something illegal, I’d like to see it. But there’s nothing illegal.”

Hahn spokesman Kam Kuwata dismissed Hertzberg’s demands, saying the commissioners had done nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, Hahn -- whose once-solid support in the city’s black community has splintered -- highlighted the endorsements of some prominent African Americans, most notably Ethel Bradley, widow of the late Mayor Tom Bradley.

Standing in the community room of Second Baptist Church in South Los Angeles surrounded by ministers and neighborhood leaders, Hahn was extolled as a leader who has reduced crime and made City Hall accessible to even the most blighted neighborhoods.

Bradley, 86, was not up to attending the event and was represented by her daughter, Lorraine.

“My mother wasn’t able to be here today, but she wanted me to let everyone know how much we support the mayor’s reelection bid,” she said. “He’s done a fine job; we want four more years, and the city has continued to grow and will continue to grow with the leadership of this fine gentleman.”

Parks, who represents part of South Los Angeles, also campaigned there, standing at the site of the Baldwin Hills Promenade condominium development to announce his plan for addressing the city’s housing crisis.

Meanwhile, comedian George Lopez stumped for Alarcon on Monday, joining the candidate and his supporters on a bus that carried them to the evening debate.

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Times staff writers Faye Fiore, Jessica Garrison, Noam N. Levey and Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report.