Riordan Intends to Stick to His Key Goals

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan enters the final year of his term today with the same priorities he set for himself when he first ran for office nearly four years ago: more police officers, a better local economy, a reinvented City Hall.

“It’s ‘stay the course,’ ” Riordan said of what Angelenos can expect from his administration as he heads toward his reelection bid next spring.

He’ll soon have some key new staff members to help him reach his goals. And he believes he is making progress in smoothing the bumpy road of his relations with the powerful City Council--or at least a majority of its members.

“We’re trying to be in front of the curve” by communicating better and sooner with council members on potentially divisive issues, Riordan said last week before leaving for an Idaho vacation.

Among the rough spots: the council’s thumbs-down to Riordan’s upholding of a Police Commission reprimand of Police Chief Willie L. Williams; the unanimous override of Riordan’s veto of a development in the district of Mark Ridley-Thomas, one of the mayor’s strongest council critics; the resignation of a top Riordan aide after a council no-confidence vote; and the scaling back of the mayor’s ambitious police expansion project.

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Being in front of the curve will mean paying more attention to basics: tracking issues earlier in the legislative process, for example, and sending aides to council committee sessions, where much of the debate and policy-shaping occurs.

Riordan’s staff also is trying to let the council know of his plans early on, as well as cluing members in to what he thinks of theirs. And Riordan himself is giving up some of his well-known fondness for delegating tasks by taking the message to council members in person.

The mayor credits Stephanie Bradfield, who joined his staff a few months ago as council liaison, for improving communication between his office and lawmakers. “She’s a huge positive addition to my staff in working with the council,” Riordan said, expressing sentiments that several council members also have voiced.

Riordan said he long has tried “with virtually every council member to share credit on projects we’ve worked on together” and insists that he appreciates the council’s role as an elected body that, under the City Charter, has more power than his own office does.

“I’ve got to work it,” Riordan said of the need to sell a council majority on projects. “It’s a part of politics; there’s a checks and balances system all over, in Washington, in Sacramento. . . . It’s important to get along.”

That is not to say Riordan is makig peace altogether.

In fact, he has already launched some salvos at a handful of council members whom the mayor’s supporters suspect of trying to further their own ends at his expense. And he has made it clear he is prepared to fight for his most important proposals no matter what the council does.

“It’s a two-way street,” Riordan said. “We should be there before [the council] has set their minds in concrete, and they should be enlisting our support. . . . We should be problem-solving together.

“But too often some of them go directly to the press instead of first coming to me when there is a problem and seeing if we can’t work something out together,” he said.

Riordan would not discuss individual council members on the record last week. A few weeks earlier, however, in the middle of a heated budget tug of war over Police Department expansion, he mailed letters to carefully selected constituents of five council members.

Sent on the eve of a crucial veto-override vote, the letters praised three council members who had been in the mayor’s corner, and criticized two--Laura Chick and Rita Walters--who had opposed him.

Job 1 for the mayor right now is undoing some of the damage of earlier battles. With the free help of a private consultant, he is interviewing possible replacements for longtime friend and former Chief Operating Officer Michael Keeley, and he is trying to get his police expansion plan back up to speed.

Keeley was forced out in May after a monthlong furor over disclosures that he had surreptitiously turned over a confidential city legal strategy memo to the opposing side in a contract dispute.

Keeley apologized for “errors in judgment” and said his only intention had been to resolve the dispute, which has since gone to court. But the council delivered a 10-3 no-confidence vote, and Keeley resigned.

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Riordan said he has turned to consultant Nalini Sri Kumar, who has advised him on two other key projects, to help with a staff restructuring to fill the void left by Keeley.

“I think we are going to hire two or three people” to replace Keeley, Riordan said, noting the size and complexities of the former aide’s duties. “If I have a criticism of Mike, it was that he tried to do too much.”

Riordan said he also is working on ways to get the police expansion back on track. At stake is the central promise of his 1993 campaign and his top goal in office: expanding the understaffed Police Department by nearly 3,000 officers over four years without raising taxes.

The City Council embraced the new mayor’s goal soon after he took office, and approved his public safety plan for two more years thereafter.

But this year the council balked, questioning whether the plan would become too expensive within a few years. The council scaled back Riordan’s expansion to 460 recruits over the next year instead of the 710 originally agreed to--unless voters approve a tax increase to cover the difference.

“The council and I agreed on 98% [of the mayor’s budget proposals], but that is the one thing I felt they made a huge mistake on,” said Riordan. Initially, he had angrily said council members had “wimped out,” but by the time he vetoed their rollback, he had adopted a more conciliatory approach.

Accepting council President John Ferraro’s offer to form a task force to seek ways to pay for the full expansion, Riordan quickly added two private-sector financial experts to the group charged with searching for funds.

Riordan won’t speculate on the outcome but says he sees support for the full complement of 710 recruits.

“Obviously I strongly believe that we [need and can afford all the new officers], and I can’t find anybody in the public who agrees with” the council’s recruiting slowdown, Riordan said.

He acknowledges the council majority’s view that the expansion is too costly, but says, “If they had taken the same attitude three years ago . . . they wouldn’t have approved the public safety plan. Three years ago, the money wasn’t clearly there either . . . but I’ve always believed that you set a goal and find a way to reach it.”

Yet he finds “a strong consensus among the council now, and I think we can work together on this.” He declined to say more on the subject.

Ferraro, a frequent Riordan ally who nonetheless has sometimes been frustrated by the mayor’s leaving the council out of the loop, said he is encouraged.

“I think he’s learning from experience that we all have to work together as a team,” Ferraro said. “I think he’s really trying to work with the council” and not take matters personally when they don’t go his way.