Riordan Quietly Prepares to Seek Reelection in ’97

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan has quietly begun preparations to run for reelection in 1997, holding a series of low-key, $1,000-per-person gatherings hosted by well-heeled supporters to finance his campaign.

One of the upcoming fund-raisers, billed as a “brunch and conversation” with Riordan at the Pacific Palisades home of Steve Soboroff, a shopping mall developer, is set for June 4.

Riordan, 65, is the only candidate who has filed the requisite City Ethics Commission forms to raise money for the 1997 mayoral race, city records show.

Riordan filed his declaration of intent to raise money on April 28, only 18 days after the starting gate for filing opened April 10. Mayoral candidates may not raise political funds sooner than two years before the date of the election in which they plan to appear on the ballot.

It remains to be seen to what extent Riordan plans to rely on private contributions to fund his reelection bid.

In his 1993 campaign, the venture capitalist-attorney spent $6 million of his own money to win a job that--by his own choice--pays him $1 a year. But in 1997, as the incumbent, the mayor may not have to dig into his own pocket so deeply--or at all.

Although he has not publicly announced it, Riordan last month told a group of 50 friends, advisers and City Hall associates of his reelection plans.

“He told us that he was enjoying being mayor, was working hard and that he wanted to keep going,” Soboroff said of the gathering, held at Riordan’s Brentwood home April 26.

Bill Wardlaw, the mayor’s top political guru, was also present. “I told them that he had filed his committee papers to run and that we were very pleased with his strong approval rating,” Wardlaw said Friday.

According to Wardlaw, a poll taken this year in connection with the Riordan-backed campaign for eight measures on the April 11 ballot showed the mayor with an 82% job approval rating.

“Although the mayor’s done a great job and his poll numbers are great, in politics you should take nothing for granted--so we decided to go out and raise money as early as we legally could,” Wardlaw said.

The Riordan adviser added that he saw no political challengers on the horizon. “We’re not hearing of anyone else at all, but in this business you want to stay prepared,” Wardlaw said.

The Soboroff event is the fourth in a series of small fund-raisers the mayor hopes to hold in coming months. Wardlaw refused to say who had hosted the previous events, but sources said at least one was held by Bruce Karatz, chief executive of Kaufman & Broad Homes.

Riordan sat on the Kaufman & Broad board and Karatz is chairman of the Mayor’s Alliance for a Safer Los Angeles, a nonprofit group that is raising money to buy computers for the Police Department.

Soboroff serves as a Riordan appointee to the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission, of which he is president. He formerly was a Riordan appointee to the Harbor Commission.