Riordan Chastises City Hall : Government: The mayor calls the city permit system ‘communistic.’ He blames lobbyists for gridlock.

After just one month in office, Mayor Richard Riordan unloaded a powerful punch at the City Hall he now runs, denouncing its system of permit requirements for business as “communistic” and blasting lobbyists as a “very dangerous” symptom of government gridlock and remoteness.

“It’s like being in a communist country,” Riordan said of the multiplicity of city permits sometimes required of companies doing business in Los Angeles. He spoke Thursday in Burbank to about 500 owners of small manufacturing firms.

“The city is run on conditional-use permits,” Riordan said. “You have to beg to get anything (from government).”

The brief speech was music to the ears of the California Industrial Leadership Council, an organization of small manufacturers, meeting in Burbank.

“Wow, that was really taking a hard line,” enthused Bill Park, president of Titan Spring and Wire Products Inc., a North Hollywood firm.

Later, in remarks to the press, Riordan also blasted City Hall’s lobbying industry, which he said thrives in part on the confusion and red tape of city government.

“I hate it, I hate it with a passion,” Riordan said. “It creates an atmosphere that’s very dangerous.” Unfortunately, Riordan said, businesses must often “hire lobbyists to make things happen” at City Hall because the government is otherwise so inaccessible.

Despite his harsh words for them, registered lobbyists and their clients have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Riordan’s campaign committee, a special mayoral transition account and a newly formed Riordan political fund for miscellaneous expenses. Among the more prominent donors is the downtown law firm of Latham & Watkins, which represents a variety of interests at City Hall.

During his speech, Riordan promised--as he has many times in the past--to make city government more friendly to the business community.

“L.A.’s government has increasingly become the enemy of business,” Riordan said. And in the city, it’s the small businesses in particular that “take it on chin.”

Riordan told the story of the woman who tried to open a 4-by-10-foot juice stand at 5th and Hill streets in downtown Los Angeles and was stymied by city permits and bureaucrats. Finally, it was “suggested that she hire a lobbyist” to get them, Riordan claimed.

But Riordan, who took office July 1, promised his audience that “you’re going to see quick and dramatic results” from his administration that will eliminate the governmental gridlock and enable Los Angeles to become once again “the greatest city on the planet Earth.”

His administration is already working to streamline the city’s land-use permit process, an effort led by a team that includes UCLA professor Bill Ouchi, a business administration expert; Tarzana investment banker Al Villalobos, and Northridge Councilman Hal Bernson, chairman of the City Council’s planning committee, Riordan said.

Later, when asked by a reporter if it was fair to compare city government to a “communist country,” the mayor said: “Oh, did I (say that)? Maybe that was a little strong.” Still, after further reflection, Riordan indicated that he thought his original remark wasn’t too far off the mark.

“You need a godfather (at City Hall) if you want something,” he said heatedly. “Any day at City Hall you can find them (lobbyists) wandering about,” he said. The system is so insidious that businesses often must hire teams of lobbyists, each member selected because of their special influence with a particular elected official, the mayor said.

Richard Mourey, Southern California director of the manufacturing group, called Riordan’s speech “very encouraging.”

Judi Glaze, a vice president of Correll Manufacturing in Van Nuys, said she too was cheered by the mayor’s pledge to privatize the city’s airport and garbage collection operations while adding a suggestion of her own to the list: privatize the city’s Department of Water and Power.

“For a week, I watched three DWP guys changing a transformer while 12 others were sitting around,” she said. “Privatize it.”