Riordan Borrows a Page From Reagan’s Sales Manual

For those of us who have grown accustomed to watching Mayor Richard Riordan stumble his way through public appearances, Wednesday’s announcement of his police expansion plan was a real surprise.

The mayor was not only articulate, he verged on the poetic. “The job can be done,” he said, “and when we get there, it will all be worthwhile if I can watch the sun come up some morning and see a flash of light across the sky. And when someone asks, ‘What was that?’ I can say, ‘That, my friend, is the angels coming back.’ ”

Using a TelePrompTer for the first time, Riordan read his speech well, if not stirringly. In addition, his team had surrounded him with a production that gave him a certain star quality, especially on television. The most notable feature was the cadre of uniformed police officers standing in back of him while he spoke in the Police Academy gym. He didn’t exactly look like George C. Scott in “Patton,” but give his team credit for a good effort.

But this was more than a show. The production was the first display of a highly professional public relations strategy Riordan hopes will rally people behind his plan and push a skeptical City Council into supporting it.

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The plan, developed by Police Chief Willie L. Williams and adopted by Riordan, calls for increasing the Police Department from the present 7,600 to 9,745 by the end of the mayor’s term in 1997. That’s fewer than the 10,500 he promised when he ran. But Riordan said 11,225 cops would actually be available for duty through reassignments, additional overtime and pay for working days off and holidays.

The trouble is that the Riordan-Williams program, like the Clinton health care plan, requires a massive sales job. For police expansion will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and Riordan must persuade taxpayers to pay for it.

The selling job really began two months ago when Riordan adviser Bill Ouchi phoned Ron Hartwig, executive vice president and Los Angeles manager of Hill and Knowlton, an international public relations firm. The Administration had failed to get its message across on past proposals and obviously needed help.

Hartwig, who has been active in such civic efforts as Rebuild L.A. and L.A. 2000, volunteered for no fee. It was public service and a public relations plus for his PR firm.

The first task was to overcome the Riordan public persona, the awkward speaker who doesn’t seem to quite realize he’s in charge. Hartwig assigned the writing of the mayor’s speech to a trusted associate, Clytia Chambers, a Hill and Knowlton consultant.

Mayoral press secretary Annette Castro and assistants Tom Kruesopon and Mike Monasmith worked with Hartwig in putting the show together. Kruesepon came up with the Patton touch--the uniformed cops standing behind Riordan when he spoke.

That was just part of a scene made for television. Police Academy trainees, in their light blue uniforms, filled the first four rows. The rest of the gym was packed with applauding Riordan city commissioners and neighborhood leaders.

The team wanted the event live on the early morning news shows. So they scheduled it for 8:15 a.m.

Riordan arrived an hour early. He proposed adding his own ending to the speech, something about him being the quarterback throwing a long pass, replacing Clytia Chambers’ words about the angels. Fortunately, he was talked out of it and the curtains opened on schedule. After a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, Riordan began speaking, just as he had rehearsed.

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The next day, Riordan embarked on Phase 2 of the selling plan, appearing with Chief Williams at community meetings around the city. And there will be more community forums to come.

When I listened to Hill and Knowlton’s Hartwig outline the strategy, I was reminded of the problems the Clintons face in selling their health care plan. Like the Clintons, Riordan and Chief Williams must explain a costly and complex program in a simple way. The Clintons offer a powerful word--security--and hope it will overcome doubts about the financing of the plan. Riordan and Williams use an equally compelling word: safety.

“Today, we face a crisis in public safety,” said Riordan. For him to succeed, the phrase will have to spark a groundswell, to start a prairie fire, as Ronald Reagan used to say.

Reagan had the ability to spread the prairie fire from the electorate into the Legislature and Congress. Today’s Los Angeles, with its turned-off electorate and self-centered neighborhoods, may be a harder sell.

Council members consider themselves little kings, or Santas, dispensing goodies to a grateful electorate. When it comes to saying no, “They believe in NIMTO, not in my term of office,” said Council President John Ferraro. “But some of us will have to start looking at what is best for the city down the road.”

Although he tried to sugarcoat it with theatrical trappings, what Riordan was asking for Wednesday was sacrifice. His expansion plan requires politicians and the public to make tough choices--less money for a favorite park or library branch, more potholes, fees for presently free garbage pickups at single family homes.

Los Angeles previously has rejected such difficult choices. That is why the Riordan team is giving as much thought to the selling of this plan as it is to its substance.