CityVote--A Key to Political Urban Renewal? : Elections: Ex-Irvine mayor enrolling municipalities nationwide for a non-binding November presidential primary. The early vote will shift candidates’ focus from rural to metropolitan problems, he says.

Former Irvine Mayor Larry Agran is back on the road with a familiar message--the quality of America’s cities is plunging and national candidates are doing nothing to help.

It’s the same theme Agran carried in 1992 when he launched a long-shot bid for president. But instead of scouring the country for votes, Agran is targeting mayors, council members and other local leaders.

He is in Washington this week to get them to participate in an initiative sprung from his disheartening presidential run. This fall, at least 12 cities will conduct what he calls a “national urban presidential primary” along with their local balloting Nov. 7.

Flashing a friendly smile, he told a gathering of local leaders Monday: “We are going to change the political landscape for 1995 and ’96.”

Agran believes the initiative, CityVote, is the best way to give city dwellers a voice in selecting party nominees. While it would not affect delegate selection, it would force candidates to deal with urban problems such as poverty, crime and deteriorating schools, he says.

The current system gives too much say to rural residents of Iowa and New Hampshire, Agran said.

The idea is the legacy of his presidential campaign, where he tried to highlight urban issues but received little attention.

“I fell considerably short of what I hoped we could contribute,” Agran said Monday. “But instead, something better has happened, and that is that instead of me being out there, cities will speak for themselves and millions of ordinary citizens will be empowered by that voice.”

Baltimore, with 750,000 residents, is the biggest city to agree to participate so far. Others include Boston; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Tucson, Ariz.; Spokane, Wash.; Moscow, Ind.; Fayette, Mo., and Pasadena.

Some cities have declined to become involved, Agran said, because they don’t want a debate about the presidency to cloud local issues.

New Hampshire First is also rallying opposition and trying to protect the rural state’s influence as the first primary-holding state. The organization’s members also proposed holding their own cities’ primary in October, just to beat CityVote by one month, Agran said.

Running the effort from his Irvine office, Agran travels a couple of times a month to recruit participants. He hopes to lure 12 to 15 more cities, including one urban area with more than 1 million people, possibly Houston. That would give 3 million to 5 million people the chance to vote in the urban primary.

Another key to CityVote’s success will be winning commitments from presidential candidates to participate in four debates on city issues. Invitations to likely and declared candidates were mailed last week.

“I expect most of them would want to participate,” Agran said. “Their names are going to be on the ballots in these cities, and the results will be known nationally.”

The challenge is just letting people know about the forum. The idea has received favorable attention in the participating cities, but has yet to gain national coverage. Agran is hoping that CNN and C-SPAN will broadcast all or part of the debates and the results.

This week, he is making contacts at the annual National League of Cities meeting, where hundreds of local officials discuss urban problems. Agran also will tape an interview for C-SPAN to be broadcast later this year and will participate in a Baltimore radio talk show.

He also announced Monday that author and journalist Bill Moyers will moderate the first debate, which will be in St. Paul, Minn., in October and broadcast on public television.

Some local officials share Agran’s vision and enthusiasm.

Janet Marcus, a member of the Tucson City Council, had no problem persuading her colleagues to participate last week:

“The cities are forgotten, so I thought it was a novel idea whose time had come. Ideas come and go, and we have to give them a try if we want to have real issues addressed.”