MTA : Leadership by Blaming Others

With the dismissal of Franklin E. White as MTA chief, the Los Angeles political community has again plunged itself into acrimonious infighting over where the city is headed and how it is going to get there. The power to fire people appears to be the weapon of choice in Mayor Richard Riordan’s arsenal--a weapon made more potent by the passage of a City Charter amendment allowing him to fire his general managers. But this kind of leadership is doing a lot more harm than good.

As it happens, the most recent victims of the mayor’s displeasure are not covered by the Charter amendment: Benjamin Bycel, the former executive director of the City Ethics Commission, and White, who ran the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Both ousters--and others threatened--raise questions about what mayoral leadership has become, and how the city can ever expect to move forward.

LAPD Chief Willie L. Williams, long believed to be on Riordan’s hit list, and White have lately complained that they must answer to too many bosses. In Williams’ case, five police commissioners, 15 council members and the mayor oversee his performance. White had to please 14 MTA board members. Each boss has his or her own agenda. Each gets angry and frustrated when they feel crossed.

Under such circumstances, it is virtually impossible to build a consensus for purposeful action. In White’s case, he either had to accede to the demands of individual board members, or he had to follow his own instincts and sense of what was right. The structure didn’t permit him a third way, and he lost his job. In Bycel’s case, the nature of his job--policing official conduct--precluded the formation of a constituency in the ordinary sense of the term. Who’s not against official corruption? But that didn’t save him, either.

Presidential scholar Robert Dallek contends that effective leadership includes vision, pragmatism, the capacity to build consensus, personality, trust--and luck, the opportunity to demonstrate leadership and the fortune to have made the right choices. Mayors, of course, do not often get the same kind of leadership opportunities that presidents do, but that doesn’t mean mayors shouldn’t be judged by their vision, pragmatism and so on.

The Riordan administration, as it has matured, appears to be moving farther away from leadership, however measured. Blaming others for this or that problem, as White was blamed for inadequately “spinning” such outright disasters as faulty subway construction and the Hollywood sinkhole into just the usual problems associated with mammoth construction projects, only raises the question of why they couldn’t do the job. Whatever happened to the idea of leading by making it possible for others do their job?

Riordan’s oft-repeated vision of “turning LA around” doesn’t mean much in the absence of any sense of what the city is turning to. Firing city or regional employees is not the same thing as offering an alternative. Nor, for that matter, is it pragmatic when its consequences lead to heightened anger and division among the city’s ethnic groups. Riordan’s handling of White’s dismissal, for example, has furthered alienated the city’s African American community.

When you think about what it takes to be a successful big-city mayor--when you think about those who were successful big-city mayors--personality seems to matter more than anything else. Fiorello H. LaGuardia, James Michael Curley of Boston, Richard J. Daley, Edward I. Koch--they all came across as bigger-than-life characters. They may have been loved or hated, but the people who loved them followed them anywhere--because they were trustworthy and credible. Whether or not they solved their city’s problems was largely a matter of luck, because most of them were captives of forces over which they had little, if any, control. For example, it matters whether the economy is up or down, that federal government is going to pump money into urban areas, or that banks and federal and state tax policies favor suburban over urban problems.

Riordan still retains the potential to build a political base that extends beyond Westside and San Fernando Valley whites, but the mayor seems reluctant to pursue the kind of exposure that would widen his appeal. Seeing Riordan with children and ice-skating does add a touch of humanity to the man in City Hall, but it does not generate serious trust and respect. One day, Riordan may even be tarred with the very words he used to describe the man he wanted fired: [White is] “an honorable man. He’s a nice man. But he’s a poor leader.”

Leadership, in part, involves recognizing that what is really wrong with Los Angeles is the structure that makes doing the job all but impossible. Riordan knows this, but he doesn’t seem to have the heart to do anything about it. In fact, there is more leadership being exercised in City Council chambers than in the mayor’s office. Several council members are seriously dedicated to rewriting the charter and speaking out on the issues that are tearing the city apart. If they could learn to work collaboratively, it would not matter how strong or weak the mayor is.

The safe bet is that Riordan will be reelected in 1997. Not because he has the personal resources to spend millions of dollars but because of term limits. If it weren’t for the certain knowledge that Riordan can only serve four more years when his first term ends, the people who are considering a challenge would risk the money. The city would certainly be better served if someone forced the mayor to articulate what Los Angeles is “turning to.” Meantime, blaming others is not leadership.