Heilman Winds Up Stormy Tenure as Mayor : Politics: Paul Koretz will step into the post. Many hope he will tone down the acrimony that marked his predecessor’s stint in office.

West Hollywood City Councilman Paul Koretz is scheduled to be installed as mayor on Monday, and many officials and residents say they hope the change will usher in a kinder, gentler time in the city’s political life.

Koretz will succeed Mayor John Heilman, who since February has weathered an acrimonious recall campaign. The campaign, which failed when its backers fell several hundred signatures short in their petition drive to force a referendum, often spilled into council meetings.

Nearly every meeting in recent months has been punctuated with hisses from the audience and arguments between the mayor and his detractors. Heilman is widely acknowledged as the leader of a three-member faction on the five-member council, and is thus in a position to call the shots on many matters of city policy.

Local activists believe Koretz, who is not a member of the council majority, will be able to tone things down. They describe him as cooperative and responsive.

“He has a good opportunity here,” said Ben Claven, a city planning commissioner. “Paul is not perceived as a person who supports one side or the other. He understands the art of politics, which in reality is the art of compromise and of listening.”

Koretz, 36, agreed.

“My style is much more low-keyed,” he said. “While the city has become factionalized in some ways, I have not aligned with any one faction. I look at issues independently.”

But some residents question whether the switch will do much to change the tone of city politics.

“It might calm down council meetings, but it won’t calm down community-wide discontent with the council and the way this city is being run,” said Bob Davis, an organizer of the recall campaign.

Skeptics say the derision of recent months will not change, regardless of who leads the council. Several activists and city officials said they expect Heilman’s foes to continue their attacks. Heilman, whose term on the council will end in 1994, has served as mayor since June, 1990. Council members rotate into the mayor’s seat, serving one-year terms.

“I really think the tumult will go on around Paul,” said John Altschul, chairman of the city’s Public Safety Commission. “Most of the confrontation during meetings comes from the audience. If he chairs a meeting forcefully, the same anger will be directed his way.”

Some activists say that Koretz has been able to stay out of the fray since joining the council in April, 1988, because he has taken few controversial positions. Even so, he has been criticized for supporting an initiative in 1989 to build a $23-million civic center in West Hollywood Park. The initiative was opposed by those who want to preserve the city’s limited parkland.

Koretz ran unsuccessfully this spring for a seat on the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees. Had he won, he would have been obliged to resign his council seat. Now, he says, he intends to seek reelection in West Hollywood next April and has no plans to seek other political office “for at least four years.”