Deputy Mayor Griego Seeks to Succeed Bradley

Linda Griego, the city’s deputy mayor for economic development, entered the 1993 Los Angeles mayor’s race Wednesday, carving out a niche in the crowded field as a Latina, an entrepreneur and the only politically prominent woman candidate.

“In many ways I’m a different kind of candidate,” said Griego, citing her experience as a specialist on veterans’ affairs for former Sen. Alan Cranston and her years as a trouble-shooter for the phone company, climbing telephone poles with her all-male crew.

Although Griego enters the race without much name identification or financial support, she is likely to have an impact, drawing support away from other candidates by virtue of her reputation as a business advocate and her involvement in Democratic politics. Moreover, as a member of Mayor Tom Bradley’s Administration, she is in a position to compete for a piece of the once powerful coalition that kept Bradley in office for two decades. For much of the past year, Griego, serving as Bradley’s liaison with Rebuild L.A., has coordinated the city’s efforts to spur economic recovery in riot-torn neighborhoods. Griego said Wednesday that her motivation to run for mayor came in part from her desire to do more for inner-city businesses than she can in her present position.

“The key issue is opening up capital markets and empowering small business,” she said. Before she went to work for Bradley, Griego started Engine Co. 28, a fashionable downtown restaurant of which she remains a part-owner.

Griego, 45 and a native of Tucumcari, N.M., becomes the 23rd candidate in the race and the second woman. The other is Vicki Hufnagel, a gynecologist and political novice.

Although Griego is no stranger to government and politics, she has not run for elective office before and acknowledges facing an uphill battle. Launching her campaign late, Griego has barely three months before the primary to become competitive with candidates who have been gearing up for the better part of a year.

At best, she said, she will be able to raise half as much money, about $1 million, as the leading money-raisers in the campaign. They are expected to be Councilman Michael Woo, lawyer Richard Riordan and Assemblyman Richard Katz.

“I’m not sure I will have much money to go on television,” she said. “But I think I will have enough for a good targeted mail campaign and for radio.’

Griego has hired veteran political consultant Robert Shrum, who was one of the architects of Democrat Harris Wofford’s upset Senate victory in Pennsylvania two years ago, and Barbara Johnson, who managed John K. Van de Kamp’s unsuccessful 1990 campaign for governor.

In announcing her candidacy, Griego moved quickly to separate herself from the only other Latino candidate in the race, Julian Nava, a college professor and former U.S. ambassador to Mexico who favors giving legal immigrants who are not citizens the right to vote in municipal elections.

“I want to be clear on that issue,” Griego said. “I believe you should be a citizen to vote.”

But Griego said she thinks it is unfortunate that immigration has become an issue in the campaign, and that it is wrong to blame immigrants for the city’s problems.

“We need to stress the contributions immigrants have made,” she said. “They are an integral part of our city and will continue to be.”

Though local political analysts are skeptical about Griego’s ability to become a front-runner in the mayor’s race, there is broad agreement that she will affect the chemistry.

“She will change the nature of the dialogue,” said City Councilwoman Joy Picus. “Women are more consensus-oriented. They bring people together.”

Griego is also expected to draw support away from some of the major candidates.

In particular, she could appeal to elements of Woo’s liberal base. In anticipation of Griego entering the contest, Woo moved quickly to show off the support he has from prominent local women. Woo held a news conference to announce the formation of Women for Woo, a group that includes lawyer Shirley Hufstetder, secretary of education under President Jimmy Carter; Sue Romero of the National Women’s Political Caucus, and Torie Osborn, former director of the Gay and Lesbian Service Center.

But Griego also has the potential to attract business people who might otherwise be drawn to Riordan or Katz, the two candidates with the closest ties to the business community.

In her announcement speech at the Los Angeles Press Club, Griego said that reviving the local economy and “restoring the city’s spirit” would be her top priorities as mayor.

“We must create a positive business climate,” Griego said. “We must understand that small business is our largest source of jobs, the most important support of our standard of life. . . . To move ahead we must forge and follow a new strategy for prosperity.”

She did not elaborate on what her strategy would be, promising to unveil a plan in the next few weeks.

But after the speech, she indicated that her campaign would focus on the role of small business and the need to organize networks of small companies--following models pioneered in Japan--to help make local firms more competitive in world markets.

Like many of the candidates, Griego argues that the City Hall bureaucracy must become more hospitable to business for the city’s economy to begin growing again. “We aren’t going to solve the budget crisis without more revenue, and we won’t get the revenue if we don’t expanding the tax base,” Griego said.

But Griego points out she has done more than talk about the problem. As deputy mayor she has worked to reform the city bureaucracy.

During the past year, for example, Griego has led the fight to prevent the closure of Ft. MacArthur Air Force Base, a move that would cost the city 17,000 jobs and an estimated $5 billion in annual revenue. She has gone to bat for a fledgling Eastside bakery on the verge of moving out of town because the city said it would take nine months to issue an operating permit. And she has made progress in saving 100 jobs in South-Central Los Angeles by intervening in a dispute between the Public Works Department and a commercial laundry over $3.6 million in contested sewer use charges.

Griego credits her experience in the private sector with giving her the ability to work effectively with the municipal bureaucracy.

“I know the problems because I’ve been on the other side of the counter, struggling with the bureaucracy,’ she said.