Mayor Sends Mailers Urging Reform Panel

Nearly 100,000 San Fernando Valley voters on Wednesday began receiving a direct mail appeal from Mayor Richard Riordan to support his petition drive to create an elected citizens panel that would study government reform.

Riordan launched the campaign Tuesday with a one-page letter that urges voters to back his plan while taking shots at a separate City Council reform proposal.

If successful, Riordan’s petition drive would allow voters to elect a 15-member citizens panel to rewrite the 71-year-old charter that outlines the balance of power in City Hall.

The panel’s reform ideas would go directly on the ballot for voter approval.

The council voted two weeks ago to create a separate appointed reform panel. Under that plan, the council retains the power to rewrite or reject any reform idea before it goes on the ballot.

In the letter to voters, Riordan describes the council’s reform panel as a “weak, nonbinding and politician-appointed” committee while describing his own panel as “independent of politicians and special-interest groups.”

Such language drew the ire of some council members. “The mayor, again, thinks he is holier than thou,” said Councilman Mike Hernandez, who supported creation of a council-appointed panel.