Riordan Received Big Valley Vote

San Fernando Valley voters continued to show solid support for Mayor Richard Riordan in Tuesday’s election but also expressed dissatisfaction with City Hall by strongly backing a measure to overhaul the city’s charter.

Valley voters--particularly white conservative voters--were less enthusiastic than residents in the rest of the city, however, about a bond measure to pay for school repairs and improvements, according to a Times exit poll.

The poll results were not surprising to political pundits, considering the politically conservative makeup of the Valley and the recent Valley threats to break up the city and the school district.

In Tuesday’s election, 78% of Valley voters described themselves as moderate or conservative, compared to 73% citywide, according to the poll. Valley voters described themselves as predominantly white, more than 40 years old, with at least some college education, according to the poll. Valley voters tend to be slightly older than voters citywide.

Those same conservative and moderate Valley voters strongly supported Riordan, the Republican mayoral candidate, with 74% of the vote over his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Tom Hayden. In contrast, Riordan received 60% of the vote citywide.

The support for Riordan was also consistent with his 1993 election, when Valley voters came out in force for Riordan over his Democratic challenger, then-Councilman Mike Woo.

Since taking office--and particularly since last year’s threat of a Valley secession--Riordan has tried to pay more attention to Valley concerns.

“The numbers are not surprising because he has embraced the Valley and spent a lot of time and focus in the Valley since he was elected,” said Rick Taylor, a political consultant who has worked with Riordan and other candidates in the Valley.

Taylor and other political observers were also not surprised by the overwhelming Valley support for Proposition 8, the measure to create a citizens panel to overhaul the city’s 72-year-old charter.

In the Valley, 65% of voters supported the measure, compared to 60% support citywide.

The drive to place Proposition 8 on the ballot grew out of threats by Valley homeowner and business groups last year to split the Valley from the rest of the city. Also last summer, a bill to help make city breakup easier moved strongly through the Assembly before it was finally killed. The surprising popularity of the bill prompted Riordan to back the charter reform effort with his political clout and hefty campaign contributions.

Proposition 8 supporters believe that Riordan’s popularity in the Valley helped boost support for the measure.

“I think people who supported Prop. 8 trusted the mayor, and that got the ball rolling,” said Peter DeMarco, campaign director for Yes on Proposition 8.

The Valley diverged from the rest of the city again in its support for Proposition BB, the school bond measure that will create a $2.4-billion windfall to fix dilapidated schools.

The measure seized 71% of the vote citywide--comfortably surpassing the two-thirds margin needed to pass local bond issues. But in the Valley, the measure mustered only 64% of the vote, not enough to pass.

Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents parts of the northeast Valley, noted that the Valley has traditionally been fiscally conservative and reluctant to back bond measures.

For example, last year Alarcon championed a police bond measure that fell six percentage points short of reaching the two-thirds approval margin in the Valley. It also failed among voters citywide, but by a smaller percentage.

He said the Valley’s 64% support for Proposition BB indicates that today’s Valley voters were more willing than their predecessors to back a bond measure--even though they still could not reach the two-thirds threshold.

The strongest opposition to the measure in the Valley came from conservative white voters, who voted 54% against the measure, according to the exit poll.

But those votes were counterbalanced somewhat by strong support from Valley Latinos, who voted 86% in favor of Proposition BB, according to the exit poll.

Latinos, whose children make up a majority of the enrollment in the Los Angeles Unified School District, were also instrumental in supporting the bond measure throughout the city. The same proposal had fallen one percentage point short of passage last November.

The poll also showed that Proposition BB got strong support from Valley voters 65 years or older, voters who aren’t likely to have children in the schools. Even so, 68% of voters 65 and older supported Proposition BB, according to the exit poll.

“That is a surprising number because older folks did not support school bonds in the past,” said Taylor.

The Times Poll interviewed 3,035 voters, including 1,180 Valley voters, as they left 60 polling places throughout the city. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points for the Valley and citywide results.