Charter Drive Sputtering, Backers Fear

In a little more than one month, Los Angeles voters will be asked to decide the fate of a proposed new City Charter, a painstakingly drafted, 333-page document that may profoundly change city government and the communities it governs for decades to come.

But polls suggest that the public knows little about the subject, and the new charter’s proponents worry that the campaign to win its passage has sputtered at the outset and now is running out of time to sell the proposal to the public.

“There’s an enormous danger,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, chairman of the city’s elected charter reform commission. “Everything depends on educating people, and reaching a relatively small number of people could change the outcome.”

Mayor Richard Riordan, who championed charter reform and has urged passage of the new document, last week hosted a breakfast at his home to begin organizing and fund-raising for the campaign. According to people who attended the private gathering, Riordan committed to campaigning for the measure and to helping raise $1 million toward the effort.

So far, however, the mayor’s public efforts have been limited to a few statements encouraging voters to approve the proposal--a fact that has caused some commissioners and other charter advocates to complain that Riordan needs to do more or risk wasting the two years of work spent writing a new city constitution.

The mayor’s advisors and others close to him say his relatively low profile is deceiving. They say he has been working the phones to raise money. They add that the administration has carefully cultivated political support for the charter for more than a year.

Riordan has spent that time building alliances with labor leaders and taxpayer advocates. In part because of that effort, organized labor is expected to support the charter--some city unions already have indicated that they intend to back it--and at least some leading taxpayer protection advocates are likely to be supportive or neutral.

“We’re trying quietly, one by one, to put together the pieces so that when it comes together, it works,” said Bill Wardlaw, a lawyer and political insider who is Riordan’s closest friend. “The mayor’s resources are being marshaled for maximum impact.”

Still, some charter proponents are anxious about what they see as the campaign’s late start. Fueling their concerns are a number of factors:

* This month’s defeat of a police and fire bond measure demonstrated that even popular proposals are no sure thing. Although that measure required two-thirds approval while the charter only requires a simple majority, the turnout in June’s election is expected to be even lower than that in this month’s primary.

* Some voters in the San Fernando Valley are exploring the possibility of seceding from the rest of Los Angeles, making it difficult to predict how they will react to a measure intended to improve the city they are trying to leave.

* Previous charter reform campaigns, most notably one in the early 1970s, failed in the face of small pockets of opposition.

* The other races that will appear on the June ballot could hurt the charter. One council runoff is in the Valley, where support for the charter is hardest to gauge, and another is in Mid-City, where Riordan’s influence is believed to be weak.

Meanwhile, charter opponents, including about half the City Council, are waging their own effort to kill the proposal. Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. are among those who have expressed disapproval of the new charter, though they have yet to put together much of an opposition campaign.

Svorinich went so far as to challenge the wording of a pro-charter ballot argument. The item had said the charter “will” help reduce city expenses in future years; under pressure from the councilman, supporters agreed to change it to “may” reduce expenditures.

George Kieffer, who headed the appointed charter commission, said he is confident that the campaign in favor of the charter will gain momentum in coming weeks, but he agreed that it is off to a late start. In part, he said, that was because the mayor and others were tied up in this month’s school board elections and only now are free to turn their attention to the charter.

“We do need to move on it,” Kieffer said. “We’ve got this to the goal line. We simply cannot fail to put it over.”

He said the recent failure of the police and fire bond measure was a bracing reminder to charter advocates that the electorate cannot be taken for granted.

That measure was supported by just about every leading Los Angeles official, from Riordan to Police Chief Bernard C. Parks to council President John Ferraro. Opposition to the $744-million proposal was all but invisible, with only one small Valley-based group recommending a no vote because members believed it was inappropriate to proceed with more borrowing at a time when the Valley is contemplating secession.

And yet, the bond measure not only failed to win two-thirds approval citywide, it failed outright in the Valley.

In the four council districts that lie entirely north of the Hollywood Hills, the bond measure garnered a simple majority in only one. It suffered its worst defeat in the 12th Council District, the city’s most conservative, where 9,987 voters cast ballots for the bond, compared with 13,742 against it.

“That is not a good sign,” Kieffer said.

Meanwhile, the charter debate is playing out in still another behind-the-scenes fight at City Hall. Members of the elected commission, which by law exists until mid-June, have been turned down by the council in their request for more than $300,000 to finish their work and conduct a public outreach campaign.

Rejected on that front, commission aides vastly scaled back their request. On Wednesday, a council committee split over how much--if anything--to give the elected commission. Ferraro favored a $50,000 appropriation, while Galanter indicated that she believes the commission’s work is done and does not deserve more money.

Afterward, members of the elected commission and others close to the process expressed frustration.

“The elected commission,” said one observer, “is caught between a council that wants it to die and a mayor who’s forgotten that it’s still alive.”

The full council is expected to take up the issue Friday.