LOCAL ELECTIONS / L.A. MAYOR : Candidates Trade Charges, Gather Allies

Seeking to depict his mayoral rival as a callous and untrustworthy businessman, Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo appeared Wednesday with a group of truckers, several of whom choked back tears as they blamed their 1987 job losses on Richard Riordan.

“We thought everything was secure, but Dick Riordan pulled the rug out from under us,” said Mike Kobzeff, a onetime forklift operator. “Dick Riordan did us bad.”

Kobzeff was one of about 15 men from the defunct Milne Trucking Company brought by Woo to a vacant industrial lot downtown in an attempt to prove that there has been a dark side to the business triumphs of Riordan, Woo’s opponent in the June 8 Los Angeles election.

The employees, among about 500 who lost their jobs at Milne’s Whittier terminal, said they had been misled into thinking that their jobs were secure just weeks before the company closed.

Riordan in the past has denied taking a direct role in the company’s operations, saying he was merely an investor in a leveraged buyout of Milne’s parent company, and did not even learn of Milne’s demise until after it was closed. On Wednesday, he called the allegations at the Woo news conference “a total lie.”

He meanwhile moved to solidify his base among moderate voters with the endorsement of City Councilman Joel Wachs, who finished third in the April primary.

Wachs’ move was not unexpected because he is a former Republican, as Riordan currently is, and because he bashed Woo repeatedly before and after the April primary.

“Of one thing I am absolutely certain: Mike Woo is not capable of running this city,” Wachs said.

He described Woo as an ineffectual lawmaker and upholder of the status quo.

“In his eight years on the City Council, Mike Woo has never seen a single major original idea through from its inception to its completion,” Wachs said. “He will pander to any group and back off when the going gets tough.”

Wachs, who received 11% of the primary vote, said Riordan will run Los Angeles “like a business that cares about its customers.”

The Wachs announcement was made near Canter’s Delicatessen, in the heart of one the city’s largest Jewish neighborhoods--symbolizing Riordan’s hope that Wachs can improve an already strong showing with that group.

Riordan reinforced the Wachs endorsement by releasing a list of more than 50 prominent Jewish activists and business people who are backing him, including developer Eli Broad, entertainment mogul Jerry Weintraub and Howard Friedman, president of the American Jewish Congress.

Riordan had the support of 43% of Jewish voters surveyed in a recent Times poll; Woo had 38%.

Democratic political consultant Bill Carrick, who is not working for either side, said Wachs’ endorsement could help Riordan with several other groups and help prove his ability to build alliances with the contentious City Council.

Added Allan Hoffenblum, a veteran Republican consultant: “It’s more a battle for the center right now, and that is where Joel Wachs can help.”

Woo said he was unfazed by the Wachs endorsement, which he said proves Wachs has been a Republican sympathizer all along. He also displayed a Wachs campaign mailer that had painted Riordan as an “important financial link in the right-wing Republican chain.”

Wachs acknowledged that he had criticized Riordan for his massive political donations to Republicans as well as Democrats. While not backing away from that position, Wachs said his endorsement reflected his greater concern that Woo is not prepared to serve as the city’s chief executive.

In another development Wednesday, the Woo camp acknowledged that a low voter turnout will hurt its candidate and announced the backing of an organization that could help get voters to the polls--the California League of Conservation Voters.

The 35,000-member environmental group has endorsed Woo and will supply hundreds of volunteers to help persuade Woo supporters to vote, said David Allgood, the group’s Southern California regional director.

The emotional high point of the day for the Woo campaign came, though, when Woo introduced the onetime employees of Milne Trucking, a 1,600-worker company shut down after a 1986 buyout organized by Riordan Freeman & Spogli, a merchant banking firm that Riordan co-founded.

Several of the men, who used to work at Milne’s Whittier terminal, said they are still struggling to recover from Riordan’s leveraged buyout of the firm’s parent company, Sun Carriers.

“I lost my family and everything I had worked for,” said Jim Wahnon, a burly man who cut short his remarks when he began to cry.

Following up on a theme he launched at a Tuesday night debate, Woo said the Milne closure demonstrates that Los Angeles residents cannot trust Riordan.

Riordan’s aides said that sometimes the businessman had been forced to make “hard business choices,” laying off some workers to save the jobs of others. They also criticized Woo for a 1987 vote for a subway car manufacturing contract that sent 2,000 jobs to Japan and Brazil.

Woo last year opposed a similar rail car contract for Japan-based Sumitomo Corp., but late Wednesday his campaign workers could not say what position Woo had taken on the 1987 contract.