In the Race for Mayor of L.A., You’d Better Have the Right Wheels

Mayoral candidate Nick Patsaouras takes the bus once a week to stay in touch with the masses; the rest of the time he tools around in a baby blue Mercedes sports coupe with personalized plates emblazoned with the Greek name NIKOS P.

Business tycoon Richard Riordan thought a would-be mayor should be a proper role model, so he gave away his Japanese luxury car and bought a red Ford Explorer, which is now equipped with a volunteer chauffeur, a car phone and a handyman who washes it once a week.

Veteran City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, another mayoral wanna-be, doesn’t care what he drives. He isn’t even sure. “A Thunderbird, ’86 or something. . . . Ford, General Motors, they’re all the same.”

We the people have always taken great interest in the way our political leaders get around. Former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. turned down a black stretch limo for a blue Plymouth Satellite to set an example of austerity and went down in history as a political weirdo. County supervisors made headlines cruising around in $74,000, armor-plated sedans with escape hatches--just in case a terrorist should lock them in the trunk. And then there was Michael Dukakis and that tank.

Now here we are in Los Angeles, silver buckle on the Southern California freeway belt, car capital of the country. In a town where you are what you drive, what’s parked in the garage can be as telling as what’s preached on the stump.

So with 24 candidates in the mayoral fleet, we went out and kicked some tires.

The used black Ford station wagon that Tom Houston bought from his cousin says plenty about this longtime government servant, who once worked for Jerry Brown. “I’m a cheapskate,” he admits.

In this “buy American” climate, Stan Sanders is the not-so-proud owner of two foreign cars, a Mercedes and an Isuzu. “I’m clearly vulnerable,” he concedes.

Julian Nava, self-described champion of the common man, washes his 1988 white Oldsmobile every Saturday morning and changes the oil himself. “I don’t mind grease under my fingernails,” he says.

Linda Griego drives a BMW 325 but evidently doesn’t spend much time thinking about it. She doesn’t even know what color it is. “Not silver, not gold. It’s like beige, but not beige.”

Councilmen Nate Holden and Joel Wachs haven’t bothered to buy cars because they were elected to public office more than 20 years ago and the taxpayers started providing them, complete with free insurance, free gas, free registration, free maintenance and a wash twice a month.

Wachs has been driving a city car for 22 years (most recently a 1992 gunmetal gray Mercury Marquis). The last car he bought was a new 1969 silver Oldsmobile Cutlass. “I don’t like jewelry and I don’t like fancy cars. I put my money into buying art.”

Lyndon B. Johnson was President the last time Holden bought a car he could call his own--a 1965 British racing green Corvette that has not been driven in so long that the registration has expired.

City ethics laws say it’s OK for elected officials to use government cars for personal errands within the county, such as shopping for groceries and picking up the laundry.

Elected officials are not entitled to drive city vehicles to campaign events, however, something Holden concedes he has done at least twice. He says he plans to reimburse the city for mileage. Councilman Michael Woo turned in his city-owned 1989 Ford Taurus last month and leased a car for campaign events. So did Assemblyman Richard Katz.

(Good thing. A 1987 Jeep Cherokee belonging to Katz’s wife was stolen Sunday. By the time the car was recovered, Katz had already found a way to get political mileage out of the incident, saying in a press release: “Everyone in Los Angeles is at risk from crime.”)

Getting around gets fancier once a candidate is elected mayor. One of the many perks that come with that job is a personal driver--an on-duty Los Angeles police officer--to chauffeur Hizzoner anywhere in any “heavy sedan” of choice (Tom Bradley’s is a Lincoln Town Car), all courtesy of the taxpayers.

Would they snap up the offer from this cash-strapped city? The candidates are divided:

Riordan would take the driver but decline the car, thus becoming the first mayor to arrive for dignitary dinners in a red rig with four-wheel drive. “That would be my saxophone,” he mused, heading down Sunset Boulevard to keep a lunch date with actor Billy Barty.

Patsaouras would take the car but not the driver: “I wouldn’t be acting as a mayor should, driving around in my little Mercedes,” he said, decorously.

Nava does not want the car or the driver: “Public officials have to downsize their living style to the level of the general public,” he intoned, thriftily.

Bernardi couldn’t care less: “I’m going to get me a Zeppelin,” he said, testily. “These are stupid questions.”

Snapshots

Nick Patsaouras (pronounced pat-sa-OH-russ) has a long way to go to improve his name identification if he is to succeed in this mayor’s race. When he left a recent message for a Times reporter, the operator took it down as “Nick Pet Service.”

It is considered politically insensitive to bash women, minorities, gays and the disabled. But it is apparently open season on white males, if mayoral candidate Woo’s remarks at a Women for Woo function Friday are any indication: “I think the most underrepresented group between my City Hall staff, my district office and my campaign is probably white males. And I don’t apologize for that.”