Mayor Endorses Candidates for Charter Panel

Mayor Richard Riordan, who has led a petition drive to create a citizen panel to overhaul the city’s 72-year-old charter, on Thursday bestowed his politically potent blessing on 10 candidates in the crowded field struggling for a voice--and, more important, a vote--in the process that may fundamentally alter the balance of power at City Hall.

The mayor’s slate includes San Fernando Valley business leader Marvin Selter; Riordan’s educational advisor, the former teachers union head Helen Bernstein; and Christine Robert, the mayor’s appointee to the city’s redevelopment panel. Like the other seven members approved by Riordan, they are expected to benefit at the polls from Riordan’s strong name recognition and the $556,500 campaign war chest that he has helped raise from corporate and other large donors.

Those factors should help Riordan’s 10 nominees distinguish themselves from the other 42 candidates whose names will appear on the April 8 ballot, which also will ask voters to approve a measure creating a 15-member panel to rewrite the 680-page charter, which serves as Los Angeles’ constitution.

Redrafting the basic rules of governance always is an unpredictable process. But among the possibilities being widely discussed are dramatically increasing the mayor’s powers, expanding the size of the City Council, creating some new level of neighborhood government, and granting the mayor power to hire and fire heads of all city departments.

The reform proposal, which originated in the mayor’s office and won a place on the ballot with his financial backing, already has sparked a power struggle between the mayor and most City Council members, who charge that Riordan is using charter reform to increase the power of his office at the expense of the legislative branch.

Several council members have predicted that Riordan would throw his influence and money behind candidates who share his desire to substantially increase the mayor’s power.

Several of the candidates who won Riordan’s support shrugged off such charges, saying they will not act as political puppets. However, some candidates agreed that the charter should give the mayor more authority.

For example, Selter, the chairman of the influential Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., said every city department head should answer to the mayor and the council should be limited to a legislative role.

“The mayor has no power and the City Council can do what it wants,” he said. “That doesn’t become effective to good city government.”

Another Riordan-backed candidate, Chet Widom, an architect whom Riordan appointed to a task force on retrofitting the earthquake-damaged City Hall, agreed.

He said the mayor should be given more authority to address citywide issues that are often held up by a divided and contentious City Council.

“The mayor needs the authority to look at a big issue and act on it,” he said.

Concerned that Riordan and his huge campaign war chest will have too much influence on the campaign, the City Council, the largest union representing city workers and some Valley homeowner groups have begun to put together their own slate of candidates for the panel--and have promised to back them with campaign contributions.

The charter debate has accentuated the 4-year-old rift between Riordan and the City Council, but the nature of the campaign--and the wide range of the candidates running for seats--makes the ultimate impact of the effort far broader than a political turf battle.

Both sides anticipate voter approval of a charter reform commission. If they are correct, its members will work without pay for 18 months rewriting the bylaws of the city.

Even if those revisions substantially widen the mayor’s powers, Riordan has repeatedly pointed out that he will not benefit. The new charter would first have to be adopted by voters, which probably could not occur before 1999. In addition, the council would have to debate and adopt ordinances required to put the new charter provisions into effect. By then, the mayor would be at the end of his second term--if he is reelected April 8.

Moreover, the political divide between Riordan and the council--at least on this issue--may not be as sharp as once thought.

In at least three council districts--those represented by Richard Alarcon, Hal Bernson and Rudy Svornich--and possibly others, the Riordan-supported candidates also are backed by the local council members. Even in contested districts, both sides wade into the election without a clear idea of how their chosen candidates will act if elected--and with no control over them once they are seated.

“People have tried to say that if that person is endorsed by the mayor or that person is endorsed by a council member, therefore that person will be under the control of the mayor or the council member,” said Bill Wardlaw, Riordan’s close friend and political advisor.

“It’s quite insulting to Helen Bernstein, for example, to think that she has no independent thought other than the mayor.”

Robert, who serves on the redevelopment panel, said that despite Riordan’s endorsement, she does not see eye to eye with the mayor on every issue and does not expect to be a rubber stamp for his agenda.

She said she has no position yet on whether the mayor’s authority should be increased.

Robert echoed the sentiments of other candidates, who said they are most interested in changing the charter to give neighborhoods more authority in deciding local planning and police issues. That sentiment coincides with one of the principal campaign themes of Riordan’s mayoral opponent, state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles).

“I’m more interested in what the folks in my district are saying,” Robert said.

Still, because most of the 52 candidates who qualified for the ballot have little name recognition outside their neighborhoods, endorsements will play a key role in who is elected, political pundits say.

A coalition of community leaders and labor unions has endorsed its own slate--most of whom are at odds with the Riordan-endorsed slate--and has promised to spend up to $500,000 to campaign on their behalf.

But the Los Angeles County labor federation’s political board already has endorsed Riordan, a move that surprised many political pundits and that now raises questions about how labor will balance its opposition to Riordan’s slate with support for Riordan himself.

Wardlaw predicted that the labor-supported candidates would in many cases not disagree with Riordan on fundamental issues. But he agreed that the paradox made some aspects of charter reform and the campaign for it hard to predict.

“Isn’t Democracy wonderful?” he said.

Other Riordan-endorsed candidates are Gary Thomas, president of the United Chambers of Commers of the San Fernando Valley; Lorri Jean, the executive director of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center; Paula Boland, former assemblywoman from Granada Hills who wrote a Valley secession bill last year; Marcos Castaneda, an aide to Councilman Alarcon; Jose Legaspi, Riordan’s appointee to the city’s Department of Water and Power Commissioners, and Jerry Gaines, a San Pedro community activist.

Wardlaw said the mayor plans to endorse additional candidates in the next few weeks. He added that the campaign money will not be contributed directly to the candidates but will be spent on slate mailings on their behalf.