Mayor’s Inaugural to Begin With Private Mass by Cardinal Mahony

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, a close friend of Los Angeles Mayor-elect Richard Riordan, will celebrate an early morning, private Mass at the city’s oldest Catholic church to begin next week’s inaugural festivities, officials said Tuesday.

Riordan, who has been a key financial adviser and major donor to the Los Angeles Archdiocese in recent years, will attend the Mass at La Placita Church near Olvera Street with about 100 close friends and relatives, said Annette Castro, a spokeswoman for Riordan’s transition team.

The July 1 inaugural, an intentionally low-budget affair, also will include an interdenominational prayer breakfast at Union Station for several hundred religious leaders.

Afterward, Riordan will walk several blocks to City Hall for a reception hosted by retiring Mayor Tom Bradley.

At 11 a.m., the new mayor, along with other elected officials, will be sworn into office in a ceremony on the south lawn of City Hall. The event will be open to the public, with several hundred seats available on a first-come basis.

Riordan is expected to go to work in the third-floor mayor’s suite immediately after the ceremony and to host a dinner at his Brentwood home in the evening for city officials and their guests.

A Spartan inaugural is being planned because of the tight economic times facing the city, Riordan aides said.

Part of the cost for the activities is coming from private donations to a $100,000 city transition fund. Among some of the early donors were several law firms, some of which do business with the city.

One of the larger donations received as of Tuesday afternoon, officials said, was a $10,000 gift from Latham & Watkins, a downtown firm that represents many developers and other clients at City Hall.

Transition team chief William Wardlaw has defended accepting such donations, arguing that it is ludicrous to suggest that the new mayor, who donated $6 million to his own campaign, could be influenced by transition gifts of several thousand dollars.