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Decision ’93 / Los Angeles County Elections : Interviews With the Mayoral Candidates : MICHAEL WOO

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Clifford is a Times Staff Writer. LaGuire is anAssistant Metropolitan Editor

Michael Woo, a member of the Los Angeles City Council since 1985, has cast himself as the mayoral candidate best qualified to ease the city’s racial and social tensions. In his eight years at City Hall, Woo, 41, has positioned himself as a new breed of politician, sponsoring a liberal urban agenda that frequently put him at odds with the city’s status quo. Woo, who lives in Silver Lake, leaves a mixed record of accomplishment in his Hollywood district. In an interview with Times staff writers Frank Clifford and Rich Connell, Woo discussed his campaign, his City Hall record and his aspirations for Los Angeles. Here is a condensed transcript of that conversation.

Question: If you could just pretend for a moment that this is July and your first week in office after being elected. What kind of signal or gesture could you send out to allay any lingering fears of the people who maybe didn’t vote for you that you’re now a mayor who is determined to do something about crime, about middle-class flight, about the kinds of issues that clearly have a lot of people running scared right now?

Answer: First, I will declare the state of economic emergency. More than just a symbolic step, I intend to do that as a statement directly to civil servants, a statement directly to the bureaucracy, saying that we’ve got to change our way of doing business in City Hall. And that will be a prelude to a proposed reorganization plan for city government, which will be directed at making it easier to get a permit within the city of Los Angeles. I will call together the cabinet meeting of the general managers of city departments and talk about my short-term goals for the beginning of my administration and what I hope to accomplish.

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Also, in the first week I will be reaching out to council members, those who supported me and those who did not support me, to give them the message very clearly that I want to put the past behind us, and that I realize that as mayor I will need their cooperation in order to be a success as the mayor.

And then, beyond that, I also will be spending a major part of my time in different parts of the city, being very visible addressing the main two issues that I see before the city, which are fighting crime and violence and revitalizing our local economy.

Q: Even if your plan works to hire 1,000 more police officers, it’ll happen over time, it’ll be an incremental expansion. (Do) you have any ideas about taking the Police Department as it exists today and making some new step toward solving or attacking a crime problem that is particularly worrisome to people right now?

A: One of my main emphases will be getting rid of guns. Emphasizing the fight for gun control and, as I’ve been stating during the campaign, that I will lead the fight for an ordinance to ban the sale of Saturday night specials within the city of L.A. Beyond that, the issue of increasing the size of the Police Department is a matter that requires greater economies within city government, potential cutbacks, potential transfers of funds within city departments.

I’ve already talked about transferring civilian positions from other city departments into the LAPD so that we can free up existing able-bodied officers to go out onto the street, and so I will also push to speed up the classification studies that are the bureaucratic necessity for being able to transfer those positions. I think that potentially within a year we can make those transfers, yes.

Q: You in your speeches talked about “too many factories have closed so that rich investors could profit.” But whatever the reason, they did close. The economy has changed dramatically over the last 10 years. While you were in office, why did City Hall miss a beat during this period when the economy was changing, when manufacturing jobs were disappearing?

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A: City government generally looks at the little picture instead of looking at the big picture. A better time to have started to plan ahead for revising our economy would have been in the early 1970s, in advance of the time when the aerospace industry started to shut down, or when military spending started to be reduced.

What’s clear now in the 1990s is that our old economic development strategies won’t work, and that city agencies such as the CRA (City Redevelopment Agency) should be redirected not for the purpose of attracting large corporations to come to L.A. but obviously the future growth in the economy is going to come in the form of small- to medium-sized businesses.

Q: How do you as a candidate disassociate yourself with what a lot of people talk about as the failed policies of city government over the last several years? How can you be the candidate for change, and at the same time, not bear some of the burdens of incumbency given the fact that you’ve been a two-term council member?

A: I can’t hide the fact that I’ve been a member of the City Council for the last eight years, but I would highlight the fact that during those eight years I’ve been a fighter to change the status quo. Whether it was taking on (former Police Chief) Daryl Gates and fighting for police reform, or fighting for the ethics reform measure that was adopted a couple of years ago, or for other battles that may not have been popular at the time. I think that I have established a consistent record of fighting for change.

Q: Do you still advocate a policy of allowing (sanctuary in Los Angeles for) political refugees from foreign countries?

A: I think that the existing policy that was adopted by the City Council is the right policy. That is that victims or witnesses of crime who are here on undocumented status should not be reported to the INS or else there will be more unsolved crimes in this city if victims or witnesses are afraid to go to the police. On the other hand, I also agree with another part of the policy adopted several years ago, which says that if someone is charged with serious crimes--felonies, serious misdemeanors--they should be reported to the INS.

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Q: At what point do the police bear the responsibility then of trying to make a determination whether somebody’s here legally or not?

A: If someone is charged with a crime, I think it is legitimate to then find out what their immigration status is.

Q: Do you think that the fact that this city is now predominantly nonwhite raises any questions about the ability of a white male to gain a mandate? In other words, not necessarily to win the election, but to gain the confidence of this city now?

A: Well, one of the toughest problems that we face in L.A. is the gap between who votes and who lives here. If you look at the statistics, it’s very clear that for the first time a majority of the city’s population is nonwhite, and yet the voting population is over 60% white. And so the effort that a candidate has to make to win an election and put together an electoral coalition is not the same as the effort the candidate has to make to put together a governing coalition after the election.

Q: One of the things that flows from the question of a governing coalition is how the city, given all the limitations, distributes its resources in terms of services. Our polling shows that there’s a strong feeling in South-Central Los Angeles, for example, that they do not get equal services from the city. Do you think South-Central gets an equitable share of services, whether it’s parks, parks services, libraries, street sweeping?

A: I would say that every part of the city feels that they receive less than what they deserve.

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Q: I know that’s what they feel, I’m asking you, do you believe they’re getting a fair share at this point?

A: Well, if you’re asking me to try to drive a wedge between the San Fernando Valley and South-Central L.A., I’m not going to do that.

Q: For example, is the financing of park programs at this moment, and the way the city does it--it’s largely fee-based--is that fair? Is it working out equitably on the ground in the different parts of this town?

A: No, it’s not. In fact, the allocation of Quimby funds is really disproportionately favoring certain parts of town that already have more than their share of park resources.

Q: So are you saying we should shift some of the resources that are now going into parks in areas like the West Side and the San Fernando Valley, either programs or facilities should be shifted to the inner city?

A: In some cases, I would support shifting those funds. I don’t want to say to people in more affluent areas “you’re going to lose all the resources you’re going to get.” But I do have to send out the message very clearly to everybody in the city that we’re all part of one city. And that we have to get beyond the focus on our immediate neighborhood to realize that we have to find a way to pull together as one city or else the problems of L.A. will only get worse.

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Q: Do you believe Richard Riordan is a right-wing Republican?

A: Yes, because he was the co-chair on the national committee to confirm Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Because he’s donated over $10,000 to Americans United for Life. Even though today he protests that he’s actually pro-life, he’s stated in that videotape that you may have heard about that he believes abortion is murder as recently as two years ago. Because he has people closely affiliated with Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition in his campaign, including the California director of the Christian coalition.

Q: But you reject any characterization of you as a liberal in terms of city politics.

A: I’m liberal on some issues, yes, but I don’t see how supporting Proposition 1, for example, to pay for more police officers, is necessarily a liberal position and yet that is my position. I think that a lot of what city government is all about is not inherently liberal or conservative. I think that part of the job of being chief executive of the city is to be a direct hands-on manager of city government.

Q: But isn’t there an inconsistency here? You want to frame this election in terms of right-wing Republicans versus whatever you are, but we can’t really discuss what you are or nail down what you are. Are you a left-wing Democrat?

A: No.

Q: So these various social agenda issues don’t define you as a left-wing Democrat but do, when they involve Riordan, define him as a right-wing Republican?

A: What I’ve been pointing to is the sharp contrast between what Dick Riordan stands for and what I stand for. I don’t think that you can find parts of my record that tie me to a liberal agenda the way that Riordan’s involvement with Bork, his involvement with the Christian coalition, his involvement with anti-choice groups tie him to the right.

Q: The decision that you made to establish your own community advisory council in Hollywood and abandon the project area committee that had been elected certainly caused some lasting public relations problems for you. If you were to run into another group of intransigent citizens after you’ve been elected, would you go about things differently or would you set them aside and get your own people in there to work with?

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A: This is an example for those who accuse me of not being tough enough to make a hard decision. This was a difficult decision because this committee had existed for years in the Hollywood area. But I decided as the elected official representing that area that the committee had become unworkable. They were having fistfights in their meetings. They couldn’t deal with their agendas. They were bogged down in arguments over parliamentary procedure, and I decided as the elected official who was elected to represent that area (that) it was my responsibility to come up with an advisory group that would more effectively deal with the problems of Hollywood.

Q: Do you think that your opponent’s campaign in any sense, in the ads, has sought to bring attention to your race?

A: You mean to my ethnicity.

Q: Ethnicity, right.

A: In some ways, yes. I don’t know if you’ve seen the brochure, which I think came out during the primary election, which included what struck me as an unnecessary photograph of the Hong Kong street scape as a way of reminding people about my ethnic ties. Some people have said to me that they thought that one of the TV ads that focuses in on my eyes was another way to hint at my ethnicity.

Q: You’ve described yourself or at least your background as being upper-middle class. This is a question that we are asking both you and Dick Riordan: Tell us the ways in which you identify with the average person. When was the last time you rode a bus? Do you shop for your own groceries? When was the last time you had to change a tire on the freeway?

A: I take my own laundry to the Laundromat. I make emergency runs to the supermarket to buy toothpaste or dental floss when we need it. Frankly, because of the demands of the campaign, I haven’t eaten dinner at home very often the last few months. I try to maximize the time I can spend with my wife as much as possible, although even that has become very difficult over the last few months.

But what I would say is that beyond the difficulties and the stresses of my own schedule, I think I’m basically the same person I was before I became an elected official. The fact that my parents and my grandparents came here fleeing from war and Communism--striving to start up a new business, seeking to start a family--I think has had a continuing effect on my own attitude about L.A. and about the kind of life that I want to lead.

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It makes me understand that part of the reason for living in a city like Los Angeles is to encourage competition, to encourage creativity, to appreciate diversity, to encourage people to work for a living.

Q: Do you ever ride public transportation to work?

A: I haven’t ridden public transportation recently. After I received my master’s in Berkeley, when I was working in San Francisco, I was a regular commuter on the BART system. Every day. And I took both BART and the bus to get from my home to work.

Q: Putting aside the enmities of this campaign if you can, is there something that you like or admire about Dick Riordan?

A: I think that he’s been very generous with the millions of dollars that he’s making.

Q: I’d like you to look ahead four years and to tell us what’s happened in the city and what’s better about it.

A: First of all, I want to point to an enlarged Police Department, I want to point to a successful term for Chief Willie Williams, as the head of the Police Department. I want to point to an increased level of confidence from the public. That they will be protected by the Police Department and that they will not run the same risk of being the victim of violence that they may have felt four years earlier.

Also I want to see a resurgence of our economy. I want to see small- to medium-sized business owners feeling more confident about being able to get a permit expeditiously from the city of L.A. And I hope that some broader national changes in the economy would result in some positive changes here in Los Angeles as well.

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I’d like to see us demonstrate that Los Angeles would not only lose the benefits of the aerospace industry but with the help of a federal government also accelerate job training efforts, as well as the financing to spin off new businesses which can employ people who were previously employed in the aerospace industry.

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