Wachs Says He Will Run for Mayor

Joel Wachs, a veteran of 21 years on the Los Angeles City Council, declared Sunday that he is a candidate for mayor, running on a platform of grass-roots democracy that calls for the creation of 100 neighborhood councils.

“If one thing came out of the riots, it’s been to start listening to disparate voices. . . . I just hear this crying out of people who feel they don’t have a voice,” Wachs said. “I am really not afraid to share power. I’m not running for another (higher) office. This is it for me. I want to advance something that can make a difference.”

The city has 35 neighborhood planning boards that allow residents to make recommendations on such matters as low-income housing, air pollution and traffic congestion. Wachs, however, insists that his councils would play a far broader role, advising on matters ranging from the city budget to law enforcement.

“Whether it’s the guy who works the drill press at the GM plant or the person on a fixed income, all people would be involved,” Wachs said.

“We’ve got to set the people free to make up their own minds. Let’s not set parameters on what people can do.”

Wachs scheduled a news conference for this morning to formally announce his candidacy.

Wachs is the second council member to declare. The first was Michael Woo, who was elected to the council in 1985. Several others may join in a race that could see a dozen or more candidates running for the job held by Tom Bradley for almost two decades. Bradley announced last month that he will not run for a sixth term.

The 53-year-old Wachs, an urbane, Harvard-educated lawyer, is best known for his advocacy of gay rights and rent control and for his commitment to the arts. A political survivor, Wachs surprised many people by deftly re-establishing a power base that includes the rural outreaches of the northeast San Fernando Valley after council redistricting in 1986.

Wachs, who recently changed his registration from Republican to independent, was first elected to the City Council’s 2nd District in 1971. Reelected to a sixth term last year, the councilman can run for mayor without giving up his seat. Wachs ran for mayor in 1973, finishing a distant fifth in a field of 13 candidates. That was the year Bradley first won election as mayor by defeating the incumbent, Sam Yorty.

Elected officials considering running are Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, City Council members Richard Alatorre, John Ferraro, Nate Holden, Joy Picus and Zev Yaroslavsky, and Assemblyman Richard Katz.

Other potential candidates include attorney-businessman Richard Riordan, Southern California Rapid Transit District board member Nick Patsaouras, and attorney and environmental activist Mary Nichols. All three have served as Bradley appointees on city boards and commissions. Larry Green, a local tax preparer who has been campaigning on street corners, also plans to run.

The challenge for Wachs, along with many other potential candidates, is the same one Bradley decided not to take on: How does a veteran officeholder convince the voters that he or she is not part of the city’s problems? With Los Angeles still reeling from the spring riots, opinion polls have revealed little voter enthusiasm for many of the city’s political leaders.

Wachs hopes to overcome the old-timer image--only three of the 15 council members have served longer than he has--by stressing innovative proposals and by running what he says will be an unorthodox campaign.

“I’m not going to spend a couple of million bucks on consultants who determine what the message is going to be based on polls and what they think will work,” Wachs said. Although he did not rule out hiring consultants, he said his campaign will be based on what is “in my head and heart.”

Wachs has staked his candidacy on several ideas, which if not exactly new, have not received a lot of attention around City Hall lately. Besides his proposal for neighborhood advisory councils, Wachs said he would appoint “a top-ranking city watchdog whose sole job will be to root out wasteful spending, inefficiency and abuse.”

He said that as mayor he also would start a “mentoring and apprenticeship program” aimed at encouraging “successful Angelenos in every occupation to take on at least one underprivileged youngster and teach that young man or woman a skill which brightens the prospects for his or her future.”

In addition, he said he would “call upon every church and synagogue in Los Angeles to take responsibility for at least one or more homeless families.”

Wachs also hopes to make the issue of jobs a centerpiece of his campaign, and he planned to use the General Motors assembly plant in Van Nuys as the backdrop for his announcement today.

He referred to his leadership role in preventing the contract to build rail cars for the Metro Green Line from going to Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. “We must continue to take care of our own” by making sure that the county’s $180 billion in transit funds be used to create local jobs and stimulate the local economy.

Wachs promised to “streamline and reform the city’s bureaucracy,” starting with the Department of Water and Power, where, he said, “unfair rate structures, hidden charges, bloated budgets and a top-heavy work force will no longer be tolerated.”

With Wachs and Woo the only declared candidates, comparisons of their records on law enforcement issues are bound to be drawn.

Woo has sought to separate himself from his colleagues by repeatedly stressing that he was the only council member to join Bradley and the Los Angeles Police Commission in calling for the removal of then-Police Chief Daryl F. Gates after the police beating of Rodney G. King last year.

Wachs was harshly criticized by some gay rights and civil rights activists for leading the council forces that blocked the Police Commission’s attempt to suspend Gates.

Wachs said Sunday that his defense of Gates in the spring of 1991 was consistent with his commitment to civil rights. He argued that the Police Commission’s action would have denied Gates due process under the law.

“Due process is one thing that minorities rely on for protection,” Wachs said.

Wachs also contends that it was only after he and Council President John Ferraro worked quietly and diplomatically to secure Gates’ retirement that the combative chief agreed to go.

“By being fair and leaving the door open, John Ferraro and I actually did more to bring about a peaceful transition than Mike Woo and Tom Bradley, who polarized it and took a political stance.”

In his declaration statement, Wachs put the most emphasis on his plan to establish more than 100 neighborhood councils, saying they initially would be advisory only but that he would have no objections to giving them some legislative authority. For that to happen, the City Charter would have to be amended by voters.

It is not the first time such a proposal has been made in Los Angeles. A coalition of community and homeowner groups several years ago pushed for creation of locally elected community planning councils, patterned after similar bodies in other cities.

Those councils would have had authority over developments in their neighborhoods rather than having just an advisory role. But the proposal never went anywhere in City Hall because it would have diluted the power of City Council members, said Laura Lake, a Westside homeowner activist who has advocated the local planning boards.

Several homeowner activists said they welcomed Wachs’ idea of giving neighborhoods greater control over their own destinies but said they would rather see the councils have the power to make decisions rather than be advisory.

At least one person suggested 100 councils would lead to chaos.

Jerry Daniel, chairman emeritus of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., said: “This sounds like ancient Greece. Everybody is going to be involved in running the government. . . . I just don’t think it’s practical.”

Wachs disagrees.

“If we are ever to achieve the potential greatness of this city, we must be willing to share power with the people who live and work here,” Wachs said.