Hayden Apologizes for Calling Riordan a Racist

State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) apologized Wednesday for calling Mayor Richard J. Riordan a racist, saying it was intended as an “ironic” and “flippant” remark.

But Hayden reiterated his contention that Riordan is “racially insensitive” and that the mayor’s polices--including opposition to a new law that will boost wages for workers at companies with city contracts, and the rejection of Police Chief Willie L. Williams’ bid for a second term--have widened the racial divide in Los Angeles.

“The term [racist] belongs on somebody from the 1950s. It doesn’t belong on Richard Riordan,” Hayden said Wednesday. “We should get back to the question of why we have such a racial divide 30 years after the civil rights movement. The fact is we have more segregation and fewer segregationists.”

Riordan, who on Wednesday collected the endorsement of one of the region’s best-known liberals and several labor unions, said Hayden was only worsening race relations by bringing such issues into the campaign.

“People in every part of this city have the same needs. They need a safer city. They need jobs. They need a good education for their children,” the mayor said. “We should work together to give them what they deserve and what they need, and leave racially divisive rhetoric on the side.”

Joining a growing list of elected officials and community leaders from across the political spectrum, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky on Wednesday said Riordan has fulfilled his 1993 campaign promise to turn L.A. around and has earned a second term.

“This is a safer city, unemployment is down, economic investment is up. The streets are safer; people feel safer,” Yaroslavsky said during a morning news conference at City Hall. “The mayor of this city, when things go bad, gets the blame. When things go in the right direction, he deserves the credit.”

Like some of Riordan’s other high-profile endorsements, Yaroslavsky’s backing is all the more significant because Riordan is a Republican and the county supervisor is a Democrat. The mayor also highlighted endorsements from another unlikely source Wednesday, with 10 labor unions announcing their support for his front-runner campaign.

Labor has split in the mayor’s race, with the county federation’s political board first backing Riordan, then deciding to stay neutral, leaving individual unions to make their own choices. Even that represents a victory of sorts for the mayor, who entered office in 1993 with plans to privatize much of the government work force, a notion that was bitterly opposed by many unions and City Council members, including then-Councilman Yaroslavsky.

Asked about those past differences Wednesday, Yaroslavsky credited Riordan with backing off from his original stand and said it did not affect his overall appraisal of the mayor’s performance.

“I’ve had some issue differences with him, but I’ve had some issue differences with my wife,” the supervisor said. “I’m still married to her.”

Riordan supported Yaroslavsky’s wife, Barbara, in her failed bid for the City Council in 1995.

Hayden has dismissed Riordan’s long list of endorsements, saying they reflect the views of establishment politicians, not the people he is running to represent. On Wednesday, he said Yaroslavsky has long been part of the “pro-development, special interest” wing of politics.

“Zev is, unfortunately, a politician who has been supportive of the same mega-growth issues as the mayor,” Hayden said, noting that the two politicians have clashed over the Red Line subway and other projects in their overlapping districts. “His primary legacy will be the over-development of Westwood. We have fought and fought and fought.”

After apologizing publicly on Michael Jackson’s KABC-AM talk show for his comments about Riordan, Hayden spent most of Wednesday in the harbor area, showcasing what he has called L.A.’s tale of two cities. Joined by leaders of labor and neighborhood groups, Hayden rushed from an oil refinery to a coal storage facility, stopped by a truckers’ lunch spot and wound up at a homeless encampment on a piece of city-owned land that lacks sewers and lights and has been dubbed the “Third World.”

“This is an illustration of the two worlds of Los Angeles,” he said. “The world of power and status downtown, and then the world where the rest of the people live and are ignored.”

If elected April 8, Hayden promised to appoint a harbor commission whose members are sensitive to the environment, worker safety and community concerns. He chided Riordan for staying silent when thousands of truck drivers went on strike for four months at the port last year, and criticized his commission for not covering the coal facility.

“He is deeply insensitive to the issue of air pollution. He’s an elitist who does not care about the health of people in areas like this one,” Hayden said. “The mayor’s definition of growth does not include workers. He just wants the steamship companies to become more profitable, and the harbor to become bigger. His commissioners want the kind of growth that comes out of the workers’ backs and out of the workers’ pockets.”

Riordan campaign manager Julio Ramirez said Wilmington is “not a forgotten area,” noting that the Alameda Corridor, a $1.9-billion rail-cargo artery, will create thousands of jobs in the harbor area.

Leland Wong, president of Riordan’s Harbor Commission, said he and his colleagues have “been very sensitive to the local community,” pointing to a $500,000 pot in last year’s budget devoted to helping the port become a better neighbor. He said that the commission is conducting a study to make the port more efficient for truck drivers, and that he is looking into whether the coal facility needs a cover.