Police Proposal Tests Riordan’s Powers of Persuasion

This week will begin to tell whether Mayor Richard Riordan is skillful enough to keep his main campaign promise--enlarging the Los Angeles Police Department.

The first test, on Tuesday, will be easy. The City Council is expected to approve a $25.8-million appropriation to pay officers for overtime and hire 80 civilians to do some of the tasks now assigned to the uniformed force. The mayor said the move will have the effect of putting 501 more cops on patrol. The appropriation would also pay for 353 new patrol cars for the LAPD’s decrepit fleet.

The money is in hand, mostly from savings accumulated during the city’s hiring freeze and from the sales tax. But for the future, Riordan will have to find many more millions if he is to increase the LAPD’s size from 7,600 to 9,700. In other words, to accomplish this he will have to make huge budget cuts and slash city services in other areas.

We all know the mayor’s power is limited.

In exchange for a vote on NAFTA, President Clinton could offer members of Congress jobs and projects for their districts and invite them and their spouses to White House dinners. Riordan has neither jobs nor projects. And when the mayor invites council members to his home in Brentwood, it doesn’t have quite the same glitter as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

So the mayor will have to become the great persuader, rallying citywide voters behind his program. These voters, presumably, would bombard council offices with letters and phone calls demanding that their representatives support the mayor and cut favorite programs to finance more police.

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I wondered how Riordan was going to do this selling job as I watched him Wednesday at the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.’s business forecast conference. To persuade masses of voters, you’ve got to be verbal. As anyone who has heard the mayor speak knows, Riordan is anything but that.

Before his speech, I met the mayor in the lobby of the Warner Center Marriott, where the affair was held, and asked what he would say. In an offhand manner, he pulled several yellow cards from his coat pocket, with notes printed in large type. He said this speech was pretty much like previous ones and he would ad lib some additional remarks. He was surprisingly casual about it.

Later, Riordan hurried through his speech, speaking with little expression and few gestures. He said building up the Police Department would make L.A. a safer city. Fear of crime was driving business away. More cops mean more business. It sounds simple, he said, “but simple and easy are not synonymous.”

He explained how he would gradually build up the number of cops and amount of equipment and increase the use of civilians, emphasizing more uniformed police on the streets. In time, he said, L.A. will have five times as many “visible police” as it does now.

Most of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. members listened carefully to his speech, apparently not put off by the awkward delivery. The association, known as VICA, is full of Riordan supporters, many of them owners of small- and medium-size San Fernando Valley manufacturing firms, developers, merchants and other business people. They share the Riordan vision of a city with lots of cops and few taxes, permits and regulations.

They also share the Riordan faith in tough-minded, disciplined business methods. Run City Hall like a business. Get things done. Give orders--buy, sell, you’re hired, you’re fired. When CEOs want to lay off thousands, they don’t ask for a vote of approval from the factory floor.

Riordan is that kind of person. A friend of his told me that Riordan, when first elected, had planned to make few public appearances and to spend most of his time in City Hall, putting the place in order. Now he devotes half his time to speeches and other public activities, selling his program. That shows, the friend said, how little power the mayor has.

I disagreed. Look at Clinton, I said, and the time he is spending making speeches for his health plan. And Clinton has a great deal of power, much more than the mayor. No matter how much authority the law gives our leaders, none of them can govern without public support.

This is called democracy.

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Bending to the needs of democracy, Riordan is adopting a game plan of reaching out to voters. Thursday, he shook up his public relations office, installing a 30-year-old PR executive, David H. Novak, as his director of communications. Novak writes speeches and has experience in community mobilizing.

This is what Riordan is trying to do with his police plan. Tuesday, he asked for support when he spoke to the Newton Boosters, a large group of business executives, most of them in the garment and wholesale businesses south of Downtown L.A. “Will you call your council person?” he asked. “Will you send a letter?” He did the same at VICA on Thursday and to a gathering of San Fernando Valley leaders Friday at Jerry’s Deli in Studio City.

Riordan seems to be catching on to the difference between running a business and running a city. Now if he can only work on his delivery.