Colorful Figure Polarized Opinion

A quarter of a century after his last day as Los Angeles’ mayor, Sam Yorty was remembered Friday as a controversial politician who played a central role in the creation of modern Los Angeles politics--”for better and for worse.”

There appears to be no middle ground among those who recall the Yorty years, from 1961 to 1973.

“He ran the most racist campaign in the history of California in 1969,” said U.S. appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who helped former Mayor Tom Bradley oust Yorty from office.

On the other hand, Rockwell “Rocky” Ames, a former Yorty aide, said: “If history is fair, Sam was unquestionably one of the best mayors that the city ever had, as far as getting things done” is concerned.

Unless you are at least pushing 50 or are an ardent civics student, you may not remember Yorty. But those who do recall him as a maverick.

Even in death, Yorty remained a polarizing figure.

Asked to name Yorty’s civic achievements, Reinhardt took a long pause and said: “He was colorful.”

Former Councilwoman and Democratic Party activist Roz Wyman, a Yorty adversary, declined to comment altogether.

Bradley was unavailable for comment.

Raphael Sonenshein, a Cal State Fullerton political scientist, noted that two books were written about Yorty--one extremely friendly (“The Maverick Mayor”) and the other extremely unfriendly (“Yorty: Politics of a Constant Candidate”). “He was someone who shook things up,” Sonenshein said.

Executive director of the city’s appointed Charter Reform Commission, Sonenshein said Yorty took Los Angeles from a “quieter period of insider politics to a more open, more contentious politics--both more exciting and more divisive.”

Former Police Chief Tom Reddin said he “never had a question” about Yorty’s unwavering support for his agency. “As far as the Police Department was concerned, you couldn’t ask for a better mayor than Sam Yorty,” he said.

City Hall old-timers recalled Yorty’s bitter feuds with The Times and the City Council. Ames recalled a councilman who would open every council meeting by saying into the microphone: “I want to remind everybody that the City Council is the ruling body of the city.”

Political strategist and pollster Arnold Steinberg called Yorty “the local Harry Truman--someone who spoke his mind.”

“It really is the end of an era,” Steinberg said.

Council President John Ferraro, a pillar of City Hall since the Yorty years, remembered the three-term mayor as “a good politician who understood politics.”

Although Yorty was criticized for his extensive travels--and often derided as spending more time out of the city than in it--Ferraro said the former mayor promoted the city at every turn.

“He looked at Los Angeles as the city of the future,” the council president said. Ferraro particularly praised Yorty for his efforts to build the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“Sam Yorty was a visionary who created economic ties between Los Angeles and the rest of the world,” said county Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

Offering a more critical assessment, Reinhardt said: “In City Hall during the Yorty years, you could walk through those halls forever and never see anybody who wasn’t Caucasian. That whole atmosphere changed the day Tom Bradley was elected. It was no longer a segregated government and a segregated society in Los Angeles after the Yorty years ended.”

Former Yorty aides, however, contended that he tried to bring minorities and women into municipal government, although Sonenshein said such efforts did not match those of Bradley.

The current mayor, Richard Riordan, said Yorty was “never afraid to speak his mind.”

“I did not know Sam Yorty,” Riordan said, “but I understand he was the first mayor from the San Fernando Valley, and he led the city with an eye toward bringing the people of the suburbs closer to the central city.”

Arthur K. Snyder, a former city councilman, said: “When personal enmities have passed with the years, and historians of the city look back on the planting of the seeds of the new Los Angeles, the world city of the next century, they will rank Sam Yorty as one of its greatest mayors.”