Riordan Pays the Price for Calling Bakersfield Boring : Cities: After a 3 1/2-hour tour on 106-degree day, he’s roasted by residents. But L.A. mayor slips in some digs.

“Bakersfield is boring,” Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan blurted out during a recent radio interview, a remark he did not deem controversial in the least.

On Monday, after the quip caused a flap in this image-conscious San Joaquin Valley city, Riordan paid the price--a 3 1/2-hour tour of Bakersfield in 106-degree heat. What’s more, the mayor was roasted by the proud citizens of Bakersfield. Through it all, a good-natured Riordan still managed to get in a few digs at his hosts.

Riordan’s put-down of Bakersfield came in February during an interview on Michael Jackson’s KABC radio show. After hearing a commercial during the program that urged Angelenos to give Bakersfield a try, Riordan said: “I hope you all agree with me that Bakersfield is boring.”

The remark did not sit well with David Bash, marketing director for the West Kern Corp., a development company. Although he is a newcomer to Bakersfield, Bash wears his civic pride on the bumper of his Lexus. “Bakersfield is NOT boring,” the sticker says.

So insulted was Bash that he went to a City Council meeting to complain, carrying with him a tape-recording of the offending remark. “I just felt we had to defend ourselves,” said Bash, whose company sponsored the ad that Riordan skewered. “I don’t think we’re boring.”

Soon, others were crying foul in letters to the local newspaper. Even the mayor of Bakersfield jumped into the fray by sending a letter to Riordan asking him to give the city a try--at least for half a day.

A political cartoon in the local paper showed Mayor Bob Price dressed as a cowboy, saying: “Dick Riordan!! You Quake Shook, Brush Fired, Mud Slidin’, Traffic Jammin’, Smog Choked Varmintz! Ah’m Callin’ You Out!”

Taking up the challenge, Riordan made the 110-mile trip to Bakersfield City Hall, where he and Price hopped on a helicopter and toured the city’s sweeping farms and oil wells. To counter stereotypes that that is all there is to Bakersfield, the tour also pointed out industrial parks, colleges, the Kern River and the playing field of the Bakersfield Dodgers.

Residents and city leaders peppered the mayor with Bakersfield trivia: There are 24 Fortune 500 companies with operations in Bakersfield. It lies in the second-largest oil producing county in the country and ranks among the nation’s most productive counties in terms of agriculture.

It is the hometown of former Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren, sportscaster Frank Gifford and country crooner Buck Owens. There is a Bakersfield Symphony, a Class A baseball club and the best Basque-style beef tongue around.

The defensiveness comes from Bakersfield’s reputation as the doormat of California’s Central Valley. A while back Santa Barbara suggested shipping its homeless people to Bakersfield. And there is an ongoing municipal rivalry with Fresno, which considers itself a cut or two above old “Bako,” as it is sometimes known among locals.

Paula Armstrong, a member of a booster organization called Bakersfield Now, said people need to update their views of the rapidly growing city.

“Everybody in Los Angeles seems to remember going through Bakersfield when they were 7 years old and it was 100 degrees outside,” she said. “They need to come for a visit. A community is its people and we don’t find ourselves boring at all.”

That was the thinking behind the invitation to Riordan.

To show off a bit of upscale Bakersfield, Price took Riordan to the plush grounds of Seven Oaks Country Club to meet with business leaders. There, an upscale home right on the fairway goes for about $250,000.

A quick golf competition between the two mayors did not prove much of anything. Riordan, not known for his golf game, hit some erratic shots. But Price was worse. He missed the ball completely on several swings and then nearly beaned a newspaper photographer. Then it was off to a buffet-style luncheon at the Bakersfield Convention Center, where civic leaders had paid $15 a plate to give Riordan a taste of his own medicine.

Kern County Dist. Atty. Ed Jaegels told the luncheon crowd that Bakersfield may be boring, but it does not think much of Los Angeles’ idea of excitement.

He said motorists are not fired at on Bakersfield’s roadways, the city’s police officers do not carry picket signs and, in a reference to the O.J. Simpson case, the very few celebrities Bakersfield has do not have murder charges hanging over them.

“When we get a verdict people don’t like, they write a letter to the (paper),” Jaegels said. “In Los Angeles, they burn the place down.”

Riordan got in a few licks of his own in this municipal duel.

Asked by a local television reporter whether Bakersfield was as boring as he thought, Riordan said: “It couldn’t be as boring as I first thought.”

Then, in a wry compliment, he said: “From the look of it, Bakersfield is on an upward climb.”

He offered his Bakersfield counterpart some gifts for his next trip to Los Angeles--a beach ball, sun tan lotion, shades and an LAPD cap.

Instead of a key to the city, he gave Price a chunk of Los Angeles City Hall shaken loose by the Jan. 17 earthquake.

Riordan received a basketful of gifts of his own, including a Bakersfield lapel pin and subscriptions to the local magazine and newspaper.

“I’ll use these every night when I have insomnia,” Riordan said.