LOCAL ELECTIONS / L.A. MAYOR : Riordan Denies Paper’s Report of Racial Remark

Denying a report in a Texas newspaper, Los Angeles mayoral candidate Richard Riordan said Tuesday that he took no part in a racially charged conversation with a Bel-Air woman during a campaign swing through her neighborhood.

The Dallas Morning News, in a March 30 feature article on the mayor’s race, quoted the following exchange.

Resident: “Black people are just awful. Don’t you think so?”

Riordan: “Some of them.”

The comments are audible on a tape recording that the News reporter, Susan Feeney, played back to The Times on Tuesday.

Riordan, however, denied making the remark. Shown a copy of the article, he said:

“I can’t believe that. . . . It’s absolutely false.”

Riordan said that he was campaigning door to door when the resident, an elderly woman, invited him and his entourage into her home. He said that she proceeded to make the remarks about black people quoted in the newspaper.

But he said he was stunned by her comments and had no reply to them.

“We were sort of shocked. . . . I just sat there in shock. That’s all.”

The Riordan camp isn’t the only one facing questions of racial sensitivity as a result of the article.

Garry South, a spokesman for candidate Michael Woo, is quoted in the story as saying about Riordan: “Los Angeles isn’t about to elect an old, rich, white Republican.”

The comments attributed to both sides set off a round of finger-pointing.

Joe Scott, Riordan’s communications director, denounced South’s remark as inflammatory.

And South, while not denying that he made the remark attributed to him, took aim at Riordan. “If he said it, he clearly owes the entire African-American community an immediate explanation and apology,” South said.

Riordan stuck by his denial even after he was told that the conversation with the Bel-Air woman was on tape.

It was the second time in a week that the candidate has taken issue with published reports.

Last Friday, during a televised candidates’ forum, he denied that he been part of a corporate restructuring of Mattel that led to the closing of its last L.A.-based production facility, layoffs of 250 workers and transfer of its manufacturing operation to Mexico.

But two days after the on-the-air denial, his campaign chairman acknowledged that Riordan had been involved in the retooling that led to the plant closure and layoffs.

A highly successful venture capitalist, Riordan has made his business expertise a centerpiece of his campaign, arguing that he is the candidate best qualified to turn the Los Angeles economy around. He has called particular attention to his efforts at reviving Mattel.

In another campaign development Tuesday, opponents attacked Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Joel Wachs for attempting to draw connections between the Police Department’s riot-preparedness plan and his own abortive call for early mobilization of the National Guard.

At a candidates’ forum in Boyle Heights, Wachs told an audience of 150 that his call for a strong law enforcement presence on the streets came before Police Chief Willie L. Williams’ announcement of his plan for placing up to 6,500 officers on street duty in anticipation of verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating case.

“That is the kind of protection we need in our city and that leadership has to produce,” the city councilman said.

Critics promptly charged Wachs with attempting to make political capital out of a volatile public safety issue.

Separate statements from the mayor’s office and from candidate Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) accused Wachs of playing demagogue. A spokesman for Woo said Wachs is guilty of “outrageous chutzpah” for suggesting that he played a leading role in the city’s riot planning.

The controversy began last week when Wachs said he would introduce a motion calling for a declaration of a local emergency, so that National Guard forces could take up positions on the streets of Los Angeles “a few days before” the end of the trial of four police officers accused of violating the civil rights of Rodney G. King.

Wachs withdrew the motion after no one would second it. At the time, he said he decided not to push the matter because he had obtained new information, which he refused to disclose.

Then Tuesday, he said his original concerns were answered by Williams’ announcement that as many as 6,500 police will be on the streets as the city awaits verdicts in the trial.

“It doesn’t matter which uniform they are wearing. What people need to see is someone with a uniform,” Wachs said. “I’d rather have the LAPD.”

Wachs said that dropping his call for a Guard deployment is not a substantive change, adding that it had never been made clear to him until Williams’ announcement Tuesday that police would be out in force before the King verdicts.

Times staff writers Richard Simon and Constance Sommer contributed to this story.