Riordan Envisioning ’99 as Year of Reform for L.A.

After a year of law enforcement successes and internal turmoil, Mayor Richard Riordan said Monday that his administration will devote 1999 to reform of three troubled local institutions: city government, the business tax system and public schools.

Speaking at his annual, year-end news conference, Riordan also faced questions about the city’s bid for the Democratic National Convention, which is snagged in tense negotiations between national and local leaders.

“I’m still optimistic,” Riordan said, acknowledging that there had been differences over money and the city’s role in putting on the convention while stressing that he regards these as minor arguments. “Los Angeles is the place for the Democrats to come,” he said.

Riordan--who used the occasion to announce he will seek $10 million to continue the city’s efforts to correct computer glitches caused by the approaching millennium and to tell reporters that he will travel to Brazil next month to inspect a highly touted transportation system in Curiba--devoted most of his remarks Monday to the trio of reform measures that city voters may have the chance to consider in the first half of the coming year.

The mayor praised members of an elected charter reform commission with developing a “super charter” that he enthusiastically endorsed while arguing against any move to water down its enhancement of mayoral power. In fact, even as members of the elected and appointed commissions met a few blocks away to craft compromises between their panels, Riordan rejected that effort.

“What I’ve seen so far of the appointed commission and the compromise looks like more of the same,” Riordan said. “It’s moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic.”

That rankled some members of the charter commissions, who have been working for months on a compromise to present to their respective panels. They completed that process Monday, agreeing on an overall package to refer to each commission. For the compromise to be submitted to voters next year, both commissions and the City Council would have to approve it.

Among other things, the conference committee resolved an issue that had twice stymied it: the recommended size of the City Council. Under the proposal approved Monday, the main charter package would retain the council at 15 members but also would allow voters to approve a second measure expanding it to 25 members. That was the proposal of the elected commission, and after long debate, the appointed commissioners also agreed to it.

“I will strongly recommend to our commission that we approve the unified charter,” appointed commission Chairman George Kieffer said after the conference committee adopted the package. “If the commission supports it, I will strongly recommend it to the council as well.”

Kieffer said the compromise package, if adopted, would substantially alter the structure of city government and added that he was disappointed that Riordan was not backing the effort at compromise.

“Once he understands what we have done,” Kieffer said, “I’m hopeful that he will reconsider.”

Erwin Chemerinsky, chairman of the elected panel, echoed Kieffer’s unhappiness with the mayor’s criticism of the compromise. “I would really urge the mayor to carefully study the compromise package,” he said. “It’s just wrong to say that it’s rearranging the deck chairs. . . . It would be a very significant change.”

So far, however, Riordan has given no sign of wavering. Instead, he has lobbied members of the elected commission to reject the compromise proposal and to forge ahead with their own charter, allowing voters to consider it in June.

That same ballot may also include Riordan’s recently unveiled business-tax reform proposal--a package intended to simplify and streamline business levies that appears to enjoy broad political support at City Hall. Tax overhaul, according to Riordan and members of his administration, will form the second major plank in next year’s reform campaigns, and Riordan’s political advisors hope that its presence on the same ballot as charter reform might advance the popularity of both.

The third reform campaign Riordan envisions for the coming year is in some ways the most difficult one for him to wage. The mayor wants to encourage radical overhaul of the Los Angeles education establishment, but he holds no formal authority over schools.

Instead, he is tackling that issue by attempting to use his bully pulpit and by offering advice and financial support to candidates, who he is convinced will make dramatic change.

Speaking with a rhetorical passion that only education seems to arouse in him, Riordan denounced the current school board, blaming them for the “totally, completely bankrupt” education provided to Los Angeles’ children.

As he reviewed the past year, Riordan highlighted the city’s law enforcement record. Crime continued to drop in 1998, building on five previous years of declines locally and nationally. And though it is difficult--if not impossible--to say with confidence what has caused the drop in crime, Riordan attributed it to a blend of increased police presence and increasingly strong neighborhoods across the city.

The LAPD has more than 9,700 officers, the largest police force in Los Angeles’ history. The police buildup has been paid for largely with federal money; since becoming mayor, Riordan has secured more than $400 million in federal police grants, and though that money eventually will dry up, the city received a $133-million grant this year, enough to hire 710 officers.

The mayor did not comment, however, on the turmoil that his staff underwent in 1998. He began the year with Robin Kramer, a respected City Hall veteran, as his chief of staff. When Kramer announced her resignation, Riordan turned to Lesa Slaughter, a likable but little-known administrator. She lasted less than four months before Riordan fired her and replaced her with Kelly Martin, who has worked with Riordan off and on for years, both in the private sector and in city government.

Since Martin’s appointment in October, the administration appears to have enjoyed a period of relative calm. On Monday, Riordan was joined by all but one of his deputy mayors, a group that Martin has said is committed to serving out the balance of the Riordan administration, which runs until 2001.