Runoff Will Fill Final 7 Slots on Reform Panel

In April, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and his supporters spent nearly $300,000 to help elect a slate of 12 candidates to a citizens panel that will work to overhaul the city’s 72-year-old charter.

But Riordan’s plans were thrown off kilter when only three of the eight candidates elected to the 15-member panel were from his slate.

Instead, the big winners were the city’s labor unions, which spent nearly half what Riordan did, but had seven of their candidates elected to the panel. Two of them also were on Riordan’s slate.

Round 2 of the charter fight comes Tuesday, when voters will elect the remaining seven members from a field of 14 candidates who did not receive a majority in April.

Riordan has not thrown in the towel. The mayor and his supporters have continued to make hefty contributions during the runoff race, even showering money on one candidate who doesn’t want Riordan’s support. Still, the runoff race has so far been a low-key sequel to the April primary, partly because many voters didn’t realize a runoff was necessary and because Tuesday’s ballot does not include a high-profile citywide race such as a mayoral campaign.

Kristin Heffron, head of the city’s election division, predicts a voter turnout Tuesday of 16% to 20%--about half the turnout for April’s primary. Such a showing would be ironic, candidates say, because the efforts to reform the charter were prompted in part by charges that City Hall does not listen to its constituents.

In response to such complaints, Riordan led an initiative campaign last summer to create the elected panel. The mayor rejected a proposal for an appointed panel created by the City Council, saying it could not act independently of the lawmakers.

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The April primary also received much more attention because of the high-profile struggle between Riordan and labor unions to get their candidates elected to the panel.

In the primary, the mayor and his associates funded an expensive campaign to support Riordan’s 12 candidates through a so-called independent expenditure committee, which could accept unlimited contributions under state law at the time. But Proposition 208, which California voters approved in November, imposed $250 contribution limits to independent expenditure committees starting New Year’s Day. Most of Riordan’s funding was raised before Jan. 1.

Under the new limit, Riordan’s committee, Citizens for a Better Los Angeles, has raised less than $40,000. But in the runoff, the committee has spent $125,800 to back seven candidates, partly by tapping funds raised before the limit took effect.

Labor unions have also cut back, spending only $31,000 to support two candidates, Charley Mims and Benett Kayser.

To make up for the drop in spending from Riordan and the labor groups, the candidates themselves have raised more, in some cases twice what they collected in the primary.

Despite the drubbing his candidates received in April, Riordan is conducting an aggressive campaign. In the race for the 4th District post, which centers around the Hollywood and Griffith Park area, the runoff candidates are William Weinberger, an attorney, and Mims, a public works manager who is backed by the city labor unions.

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Riordan’s original choice in that District was former teachers union leader Helen Bernstein, who was killed when struck by a car just before the primary. In the runoff, Riordan offered to endorse Weinberger, but the candidate rejected the mayor’s endorsement, saying he wanted to remain independent.

Despite the rejection, Riordan’s committee spent $26,300 to campaign for Weinberger--a point Mims has made an issue in the race. Weinberger said that Riordan’s support is frustrating but that he can’t stop the mayor from spending on his behalf.

In the 14th District, which includes parts of East Los Angeles, David Tokofsky, a Los Angeles school board member, was supported by labor unions during the primary. But in the runoff against Nick Pacheco, a deputy district attorney, Riordan threw his support behind Tokofsky, spending $16,500 on his behalf. Although Pacheco questions Tokofsky’s loyalties, Tokofsky accepted Riordan’s endorsement, saying it indicates that he is “a consensus candidate.”

Meanwhile, other candidates are trying to explain to voters that there is an election Tuesday.

Charter candidate Janice Hahn--sister of City Atty. James K. Hahn--said she got nearly 30 congratulatory calls after she made it into the runoffs with schoolteacher Jerry Gaines to represent the Harbor area’s 15th council district.

“Most people didn’t realize there was a runoff,” she said. “‘They thought I won.”

Such confusion is believed to be partly responsible for the low turnout at candidate forums leading up to Tuesday’s runoff.

The following is a list of all the charter candidates on Tuesday’s ballot:

District 4: Charley Mims, William Weinberger

District 6: Chester Widom, Jimmie Woods-Gray

District 9: Woody Fleming, Richardo Torres II

District 11: Rob Glushon, Maureen Kindel

District 13: Lorri Jean, Benett Kayser

District 14: Nick Pacheco, David Tokofsky

District 15: Janice Hahn, Jerry Gaines