LOCAL ELECTIONS / L.A. MAYOR : Riordan Contributes Another $3 Million to His Own Campaign

Richard Riordan gave $3 million to his campaign Friday, bringing the total to $6 million that the lawyer-businessman has contributed to his race to become mayor of Los Angeles.

Riordan cast his latest donation in the same light as his earlier ones--as a matter of principle designed to ensure that he is free from obligations to special interests and, if elected, that he will be “nobody’s mayor but the people’s.”

The campaign of his opponent in the June 8 runoff, City Councilman Michael Woo, immediately attacked that rationale as “self-serving gobbledygook” and charged that Riordan was trying to buy the election.

The Woo campaign also charged that Riordan has unfairly hampered its fund-raising ability by misusing a technical provision of the city’s ethics law.

Woo’s communications director, Garry South, charged that Riordan’s claim that he has adhered to the provision is impossible.

The ethics law bars candidates such as Woo, who accept public matching funds, from raising more than $1,000 from each contributor under ordinary circumstances.

The law has an exception, however. The moment a candidate such as Riordan, who does not accept public matching funds, puts in at least $30,000 of his own money, a candidate such as Woo is free to raise up to $3,000 per contributor.

Riordan delayed putting in at least $30,000 for two weeks after the primary in a move that his campaign strategists calculated would limit Woo’s fund-raising ability.

For two weeks, he put in only $25,000--left over from his primary campaign.

Woo’s camp charged that it would have been impossible for Riordan to have run his campaign for the last two weeks on a mere $25,000.

Riordan’s campaign director, William Wardlaw, responded by saying that Riordan had access to money from supporters other than the candidate, who contributed “early in the runoff.”

Wardlaw said that in addition to his own money, Riordan had raised about $300,000 for the runoff in increments of no more than $1,000 per contributor.

He acknowledged that Riordan has had an easier time raising money since he finished first in a field of 24 candidates in the primary.

Woo’s campaign manager, Vicky Rideout, said her candidate has raised several hundred thousand dollars. “We have close to $500,000 if you count the matching funds,” she said.

Riordan, the Woo campaign noted, was the largest individual financial backer of the successful city ballot measure that established a matching fund.

To receive matching funds, candidates had to pledge to limit their campaign expenditures and the amounts they could raise from individuals and special interests.

It was sold as a good government measure. But in the mayor’s race, Riordan has attacked Woo for accepting the funds, saying that Woo is fundamentally wrong to do so because the city is financially strapped.

Rideout of the Woo campaign also challenged Riordan to “tell us a little about where his money’s coming from. It comes from junk bonds, takeovers, putting people out of work,” she said.

Woo began airing a new TV ad Friday attacking Riordan for laying off workers at Mattel while he was a member of the toy company’s board of directors.

Mattel Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John W. Amerman fired off a letter to Woo on Friday, criticizing the ad as inaccurate and misleading.

“Your allegations that Mattel fired 1,300 people are misleading and a complete fabrication,” Amerman wrote. “The truth is that our company was experiencing financial difficulty in 1987, and the decisive action we took at that time was critical to the company’s survival.”

Mattel officials have previously acknowledged dismissing about 800 Southern California workers in cutbacks while Riordan was on the board.

Also on Friday, Riordan went to Watts with a group of business executives to meet with several gang members and community activists and talk about creating jobs.

Riordan was upbeat in discussing the possibilities for employment in South-Central Los Angeles. Not once did he mention crime or repeat what he said so often during his primary campaign: that the only way the economy could be improved in the inner city was to make it safer.

Flanked by representatives of IBM, Food for Less, Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Co., Times Mirror Co. and other firms, Riordan listened quietly to the pleas and admonitions of Malik Spellman and other youths who came to the meeting at a community center at 111th Place and Avalon Boulevard.

“This is a very serious issue we are dealing with. It may not affect you yet. But it’s coming to a theater near you if we don’t stop it now,” said Spellman, who said he had never been in a gang but had lived in a gang environment.

“We have young men with families who want to go to work, who want to learn . . . who want to put down the AK-47s and pick up the hammers.

“We have to make corporate America commit themselves. They have to come in. They have to come in with the agenda to help the individual. When you teach this person a job training skill, we have to take this person and place him within that corporation that inspired him to want to learn.”

At various points, Riordan was challenged by young men to say what he was prepared to do to help them.

“I just like wanted to ask. . . . I mean, you’ve been doing a lot of talking. What are you going to do to help our community? What are you going to do for us?,” asked a man who identified himself as Patrick.

“I am going to expand the business outreach offices of the mayor dramatically,” Riordan said. “I’m going to work hard to get venture capital down here. I am particularly going to work hard to get the federal government to ease its restrictions on banks making loans into small and medium-size inner-city businesses.”

Later, Derek, who identified himself as a gang member, asked a bit more bluntly, “What kind of jobs are you going to offer us today?”

Riordan turned to a business partner, former Los Angeles Ram quarterback Pat Haden, and asked him to answer the question.

Haden identified two firms in which Riordan has an interest that are hiring people. “A food merchandising company has hired 12, 15 people recently and continues to interview and hire. Adohr Farms has a number of interviews and opportunities I think available as well.”

Meanwhile, the Ethics Commission agreed Friday with a legal opinion that says the city can regulate independent fund-raising committees such as the state Democratic Party, which has pledged to run a $200,000 independent campaign on Woo’s behalf.

Commissioners agreed with an analysis by attorney Bob Stern that such outside groups would have to comply with a city-imposed $500 limit on individual contributions.

For donations that exceeded the limit, only $500 of the contributions could go to the local race. Money raised by such groups before they got involved in a city race could be used locally, even if it exceeded the donation limits.

Lance H. Olson, an attorney for the state Democratic Party, said he still believes that applying such donation limits is unconstitutional. But he said the party wants to cooperate with the city in the final weeks of the election and would be inclined to agree with such rules.

Ethics commissioners said they would review the entire issue after the June 8 runoff to clarify the city’s law and close any loopholes. “We have to make sure we’re not stepping on (outside groups’) constitutional toes,” Commissioner Billy Mills said.

Times staff writers Frank Clifford, Marc Lacey and Richard Simon contributed to this story.