FOR RICHARD RIORDAN : Here Is Someone Able to Make the Tough Calls : It’s clear that L.A. has become a dysfunctional city, which is why this election is shaping up as a watershed event. But it will take a strong mayor to turn things around.

President Clinton came to the Valley and endorsed Michael Woo for mayor. The state Democratic Party had previously endorsed him. My voting record and my political and social activism reveal that I am a moderate-to-liberal Democrat.

So why am I supporting Richard Riordan? Because Los Angeles needs a mayor who is willing to make the tough decisions.

The post-riot Webster Commission concluded that Los Angeles is a dysfunctional city. We face a budget deficit of as much as $500 million. Businesses are fleeing. Municipal services are deteriorating. No relief is in sight. It has become evident that this is a watershed election.

Most Valley residents feel that crime is the No. 1 issue in this campaign. I disagree. The No. 1 issue is money. How are we going to pay for getting Los Angeles back on the right track?

When it comes to crime, for instance, the issue is not which candidate is for more police officers. Both are. The issue is: Which has the plan to pay for them?

For years to come, the state and federal governments will allocate less and less money to Los Angeles. We have to get more out of our local tax dollars. Tackling our fiscal problems head-on is the challenge that confronts our next mayor.

During the past 20 years, spending on the police has declined as a share of total city spending. In 1977, we spent 20% of our budget on police. In 1993 it is down to 14%.

To stem the tide of crime, we must do more than simply increase the size of our police force. We must provide more staffing for gang diversion programs, for latchkey children who have nowhere to go after school, for solving our crisis of homelessness with affordable housing.

Yet our commitment to affordable housing is limited to empty policy statements and government resolutions. Los Angeles’ lengthy building-approval process, its high building permit fees and its refusal to zone for higher densities where appropriate have all worked against it.

Our city budget reflects an attempt to do too much with too few resources, resulting in failed policies. Rather than fund every city service, project or program to a level of mediocrity and watch as our quality of life deteriorates, let us set priorities and then fund them accordingly.

A high-priority list might include a 10,000-officer police force, an updated 911 system, crisis gang intervention, after-school child care, parks for inner-city kids and the creation of affordable housing.

As we run out of money for lower-priority items, we will need a mayor with the resolve to say no. Say no to those who, for example, would rather have statues in public places than more live cops on our streets.

Richard Riordan is the person with that resolve.

Woo’s plan for paying for a larger police force is a 5% cut in all city department budgets. Woo proposes to appoint an “economic czar” to deal with the city’s economic problems. Both of these proposals demonstrate the lack of a plan, the lack of leadership and lack of management capability. They are based on nothing but political expediency.

Woo was recently challenged at a Valley meeting of business people with the fact that certain city departments should probably be cut back substantially more than 5%, while others are too important or starved or both to be cut at all. He responded that his plan would be easier to implement because it would avoid battles among departments and their supporters.

In other words, Woo would rather take the easy way out than make the hard decisions necessary in properly setting the city’s budget priorities.

Richard Riordan represents a fresh approach. He is not indebted to special interests who recoil from the suggestion that municipal services be put out to competitive bid. Nor is he beholden to a City Hall bureaucracy threatened by new ideas like the leasing of Los Angeles International Airport. The stark reality is that City Hall is a $3-billion business enterprise in which inefficiency and waste are pervasive.

The compelling issues in this race are not ideological. They are not partisan. The question is which candidate will be a more effective agent for change. Richard Riordan is willing to be the “economic czar” that Michael Woo would appoint. Why not just vote directly for Richard Riordan?