City Hall’s in a Bygone Era, Riordan Finds

Mayor-elect Richard Riordan--accustomed to the high-tech, modern environs of his skyscraper, Bunker Hill law offices--paid an eye-opening visit Friday to his legal colleagues in the city attorney’s office.

Riordan, an attorney and venture capitalist associated with many businesses on the cutting edge of technology, came away stunned by the office’s lack of commonplace, time-saving computer systems used at most law firms to manage and research mountains of paperwork.

It was a sign of the learning curve Riordan may face as he moves from the elegantly efficient executive offices of the corporate world to the chipped, wood-paneled bureaucracy of City Hall.

“Their office is run like a buggy-whip company,” Riordan told advisers gathered in his law firm’s elegant peach-walled 29th-floor conference room, where the mayor-elect was given his first briefing on transition planning.

City lawyers must search by hand through pages of depositions and transcripts as they prepare for cases, Riordan said. “Every law firm in town now puts (legal paperwork) on a database where you can pick up anything in a second,” he said.

The city’s failure to invest in computers for the office was shortsighted, Riordan later told reporters. Given the cost of lawyers’ time, he said, “a computer pays for itself in probably six or eight months.”

Citing the office as an example of a place where improvements can be made, Riordan told his advisers he wants to form an advisory panel of top volunteer lawyers to work with City Atty. James Hahn on modernization.

Hahn said he welcomed the suggestion, but noted his past efforts to computerize his office have been thwarted by tight budgets. “It becomes the first thing cut when the budget gets tight,” Hahn said, adding that City Council members decide to “just defer any new equipment.”

Though Riordan and his advisers have provided few specifics, they insist there are millions of dollars in savings to be gained by reducing waste and streamlining City Hall operations.

Returning from a five-day, post-election fishing and bicycling vacation in Idaho, Riordan has begun soaking up the details of the challenges he faces after he takes office July 1.

“We have a very complicated, hard road ahead,” he told his transition team Friday. “But I think we are starting out in the right direction.”

After a brief photo opportunity, the press was ushered out of the meeting and Riordan conferred privately with his advisers. Transition chief William Wardlaw said later that the team is sifting through hundreds of applications for staff jobs and commission appointments.

Wardlaw said by the middle of next week, Riordan and his advisers may begin zeroing in on potential mayoral office executives and key commission appointments, starting with such high-profile panels as the Police and Airport commissions.

Both will be central to fulfilling Riordan’s campaign themes of improving public safety and leasing out Los Angeles International Airport to fund a 40%, 3,000-officer buildup of the police force.

Many legal and practical obstacles stand in the way of Riordan’s plan to lease Los Angeles International Airport, and another strategy to use LAPD reserve officers and retirees to beef up the patrol force. But the mayor-elect said he is not waffling on his campaign pledge.

“I see different paths to get there,” Riordan said. “The bottom line is we have no choice. We have to have 3,000 more police” or the city will not be able to attract new jobs and investment.

Later in the day, however, Riordan was again sounding the alarm about the looming state budget crisis and the tens of millions of dollars in potential cuts in the already approved city spending plan for the new fiscal year.

At a City Hall news conference Friday afternoon, Riordan, who met with Gov. Pete Wilson and legislative leaders last week, harshly attacked a proposal to shift local government funding to schools, a scheme that could take a minimum of $75 million from the city this year.

“I promised to make public safety and the economy the top issues for the future,” said Riordan, a Republican who will take office July 1. “A reduction in our local property tax revenues by the state is a direct threat to my commitment. I find it, and the citizens of Los Angeles find it, unacceptable.”

In other news involving Riordan:

* Aides announced the mayor-elect would be traveling to Indianapolis, Chicago and Washington next week to meet various local and federal officials. Riordan will meet with White House Chief of Staff Thomas (Mack) McLarty, California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and other congressional leaders to pitch Los Angeles’ need for federal funds. He also will visit the mayors of Chicago and Indianapolis to discuss efforts in those cities to privately contract public services.

* At the request of the mayor-elect’s aides, two lucrative city contracts for LAX and other city-owned airports will be postponed so they can be considered by the new Administration, rather than Mayor Tom Bradley’s appointees.

The multimillion-dollar contracts were scheduled to be awarded in the next few weeks. Members of the Bradley-appointed Airport Commission informally agreed this week not to award contracts for the operation of the airports’ parking lots and gift shops. The decision came despite earlier speculation that the contracts might be awarded to two firms that employ Bradley allies.

* The mayor-elect’s lawyer submitted to city officials a proposed plan to place his estimated $100-million fortune in a blind trust, as part of an effort to eliminate potential conflicts of interest for the new mayor.

The city Ethics Commission and the city attorney’s office were reviewing the document, which Riordan aides said would cover all of the mayor-elect’s investments.