What the Mayor’s Race Should Be All About

The next mayoral election is more than a year and a presidential election away, but the incumbent and his potential challengers are already seeking political advantage. If Los Angeles has any luck at all, the city will be the beneficiary, because all the candidates, including Mayor Richard Riordan, will have to talk about the future and how they plan to lead us to it.

Talking about crime should not be mistaken for a “vision.” Riordan’s pledgeto put 3,000 cops on the street was an effective campaign ploy nearly four years ago, but his failure to deliver should not become the focus of the ’97 mayoral campaign. Crime is to be feared and fought, but it is not the be-all, end-all of city life.

The mayoral campaign should be an opportunity to think about Los Angeles as a place to live and as a player in the global economy. Regrettably, the image of the city is now one of racial division, of wildly disparate socioeconomic classes living in isolation from each other. There are many efforts, by individuals and organizations, to build bridges among the city’s communities, but they don’t get much attention from the media, and, accordingly, they don’t get picked up by our collective conscience. Changing this image requires recognition of the problem at the top and concerted, focused energy to recognize and support those below. Next year’s campaign, if properly conducted, can be a first step. Here are some key issues:

* If Los Angeles is a city of many neighborhoods, many communities, we need mechanisms to coordinate them and more opportunities to build broadly based coalitions. The current structure of governance is inaccessible to most residents and most organizations. Everyone--from the business community to local social-service agencies--complains about its lack of responsiveness. For that matter, so does the mayor and the City Council. The problem is not that bureaucrats and politicians conspire to be unresponsive. Rather, it is the structure of city government itself, which fragments power and responsibility. It will take leadership to change that, and a vision of what the new structure should be.

* The physical structure of the city is in need of maintenance and support. We cannot afford to let the sewers fail and the main engines of the public infrastructure to stop. Transportation, whether by car, bus or rail, has got to be resolved. Deregulation of the utilities is going to mean substantial change for the Department of Water and Power; the competition from other West Coast cities and ports for a share of the burgeoning trade with Asia is going to get tougher. San Francisco, under Mayor Willie Brown, will give Los Angeles a serious run for its money, given his political skill and ability to get things done.

* Los Angeles never wanted to be a “public” city. People came here to pursue private dreams, in their own back yards and with their own access to the ocean and mountains. But public spaces are needed now more than ever in order to bring people together. There cannot be a sense of community if everyone sits in their own the back yard.

* This sense of community is also important for the economy. The Riordan administration has placed considerable emphasis on economic growth, but there is more to the economic vitality of an international city than local rules and regulations. The single greatest asset the city has is its diversity. There are substantial populations in Los Angeles from every part of the globe. That means markets, trade and investment. But it will not happen if we are unable to project the image of a whole community.

* That the state of California finds itself with an unexpected budgetary surplus does not mean Los Angeles can relax about its finances, because its income chiefly derives from slower-moving economic engines. It is unclear what the devolution of power from the federal government to the state and local levels will entail. Block grants to the state do not necessarily mean more resources to address local problems; there are too many hands grasping for money as it works its way down the pipeline.

* As government shrinks, the need for greater reliance on the private sector grows. Los Angeles has not had much of a problem with corruption in its public sector--the great scandals of the past were private. There is a great deal of money at stake and conflicting views of what ought to be done. If there are to be more public/private partnerships, if the city is to rely more on private-sector volunteers participating in the making of public decisions, there needs to be clear guidelines of what is and what is not acceptable behavior.

Leadership is partly a result of opportunity, and largely a result of character. It cannot move us forward, however, unless it implies a vision. The campaign for mayor should be an opportunity for everyone to debate it, to fight over it, to make us believe in it.*