Transit Expert Patsaouras to Run for Mayor

Self-made millionaire and local transportation expert Nick Patsaouras is expected to formally open his campaign for mayor of Los Angeles today, becoming the first candidate to base his campaign on a detailed plan for rebuilding the city.

Although Patsaouras, 48, is well known in government circles, having served a decade on the Southern California Rapid Transit District board, he is running less on political credentials than on the strength of an idea.

“I want to be known as the man with a plan--as the mayor with the plan to make Los Angeles all it can be,” he said Tuesday.

Patsaouras said he believes passionately that a prosperous and unified Los Angeles can rise from his transit plan, which calls for city government in partnership with private developers to reshape neighborhoods across the city.

In the 10-page blueprint titled, “Transportation as a Catalyst for Remaking Our City,” Patsaouras calls for using publicly owned land surrounding future transit stations to build clusters of affordable housing, parks, day-care centers, stores and offices.

To pay for all of this, Patsaouras would rely heavily on the $183 billion in public-transit funds earmarked for Los Angeles over the next 30 years.

The money would be used to attract developers to join government in not only construction projects but in job training. The funds also would be used, the plan says, to “redirect the aerospace work force into transportation and development,” with the ultimate goal of making Los Angeles a “world transportation manufacturing center.”

Patsaouras is scheduled to join the crowded mayoral race by announcing his candidacy in English and Spanish at the city’s birthplace on Olvera Street. He then plans to travel aboard RTD buses to several campaign stops across the city, a practice he pledges to continue as he runs for mayor.

In a campaign likely to be dominated by well-known figures in and out of government, Patsaouras is clearly a dark horse whose best hope is to generate enthusiasm for his ideas. He plans to pass out his “Bill of Community Rights,” which he said will guarantee “the right to a decent job, an affordable place to live, a good education and a safe neighborhood.”

A Greek immigrant who, even before the campaign began, gave up his Mercedes sports car to ride the bus once a week, Patsaouras revels in his individuality.

He once wanted to erect what’s been called the West Coast Statue of Liberty, a high-tech bridge over the Hollywood Freeway that would be a monument to the region’s immigrants. To cut down on truck traffic on city streets, he proposed hooking up freight cars to Metro Rail commuter trains. Taking the popular cause of term limits a step further, he pushed for passage of a law based on Hawaii’s “resign to run” law, which would require public officials to quit their jobs before running for another office. And as an RTD director, he suggested that the agency could improve its image by offering free bus rides to passengers whose buses were more than 15 minutes late.

At the same time, Patsaouras is seen as a pragmatic politician who can be expected to put together a competitive campaign. He is a proven fund-raiser who has made Democratic and Republican friends from City Hall to Washington. He won bipartisan respect for his tenacious three-year fight to overcome Reagan Administration opposition to funding the Metro Rail subway.

To run his campaign, he has hired respected political consultant Bill Carrick, a onetime political director for U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy who ran Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt’s presidential primary campaign in 1988. Carrick also directed newly elected U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s unsuccessful 1990 campaign for governor.

Until recently, Patsaouras served nearly a decade as an appointee of Mayor Tom Bradley on the city Board of Zoning Appeals, where he became known to homeowner activists for a no-nonsense and sometimes abrupt style.

Patsaouras joins Councilmen Joel Wachs, Michael Woo and Nate Holden, former Deputy Mayor Tom Houston and former U.S. ambassador to Mexico Julian Nava as declared candidates in the April mayoral election. Assemblyman Richard Katz and attorney-businessman Richard Riorden also are likely candidates, and Supervisor Gloria Molina, City Council President John Ferraro and Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky are considering mayoral bids.

Like several other mayoral candidates, Patsaouras is casting himself as a political outsider in this year of disenchantment with entrenched politicians.

“In declaring my candidacy for mayor, I declare myself as a citizen candidate,” Patsaouras said. “The professional politicians have had their chance. It is time for a citizen candidate and citizen mayor, someone from the streets of this city . . . I’m going to inspire people. I’m going to set the agenda for the campaign.”

Patsaouras’ greatest challenge could be trying to arouse excitement about his technical plan. Patsaouras, an electrical engineer, sometimes can lapse into planner’s jargon.

“I’m talking about a technique that will unlock linear cities by building along transit lines,” he said of his plan.

“In May of ‘91, I proposed the idea of a transition from aerospace to transportation. You know what they said. ‘Ha. Ha. Ha. What a dreamer.’ ”

In tying the future of the city to one plan, critics say Patsaouras runs the risk of sounding simplistic.

“They can say what they want, but it will be a different story when their children read in books that the . . . Greek was right.”

In his only other bid for elective office, Patsaouras ran in 1980 for the County Board of Supervisors. He lost in the primary and endorsed Republican Mike Antonovich, who defeated then-Supervisor Baxter Ward. Antonovich later appointed Patsaouras to the RTD board.