Charter Inspires Wide Support, Deep Discord

As the campaigns for and against a new Los Angeles City Charter make their final push before Tuesday’s election, each has assumed an increasingly negative and accusatory tone.

Proponents say City Council members have leaned on city unions and lobbyists to oppose the document, while opponents say that Mayor Richard Riordan and his well-heeled friends are trying to buy the election.

“The only people who know their way around [the current charter] are the big-time lobbyists who represent downtown interests against our neighborhoods’ needs,” one pro-charter mailing states. “It’s no surprise that these same lobbyists are campaigning hard to keep the 75-year-old charter just the way it is.”

Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr., the chairman of the anti-charter campaign, lobs back: “I see this charter as the rich man’s charter. Just look at who’s contributing to it.”

There are facts in both sides’ arguments, but opponents appear to have had a harder time selling their case.

Although it is true that the charter partisans have drawn their campaign money from wealthy executives and big companies, they also have built one of the broadest political bases of any local initiative since the police reform measure of 1992. Rare indeed is the ballot measure that goes to voters with the backing of the Chamber of Commerce and the NAACP, leading Jewish, Catholic and Protestant churches, civil rights leaders and downtown business executives, plus a sweep of major city news publications--the Los Angeles Times, the Daily News of Los Angeles, the L.A. Weekly, La Opinion and the Sentinel.

Still, the sniping by both sides has dominated much of the final days before Tuesday’s election, when voters will consider whether to replace the city’s 1925 charter with an overhaul drafted by two commissions, one elected, the other appointed largely by the City Council. As the campaign rhetoric has gone from placid to pitched, it has marginalized some of the election’s real issues, the brass-tacks questions of what the proposed charter would and would not do.

It would, as critics note, add to the authority of the mayor. It would not, as some of those same critics suggest, radically reshuffle power at City Hall. It would, as supporters say, create a new vehicle for residents and others to participate in local affairs by establishing the city’s first formal network of neighborhood councils. It would not, however, guarantee the success of those councils; only time, not the charter, can determine that outcome.

It would clarify the role and responsibility of the Police Commission’s inspector general, but it would not necessarily make that office the powerful one that backers have long hoped for; the inspector general will have to make that happen.

Those uncertainties are typical and to some extent inevitable, given that the charter proposal touches virtually every aspect of city government but in most instances makes relatively modest changes, not sweeping or radical ones. That allows critics to complain that the document would change just about everything, and at the same time permits supporters to say that nothing would change that much.

Charter commission Chairmen Erwin Chemerinsky and George Kieffer have argued in forum after forum that the document they and their colleagues drafted would clean up much of the mess of the city’s current phone book-sized charter. Useless, outdated and sometimes contradictory provisions would be dropped, replaced by a more streamlined working document.

One problem with all the cutting and trimming, however, is that it is difficult for voters to know precisely what would be dropped from the existing document. Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, an ardent opponent of the charter proposal, argues that it would be better to defeat this document and instead offer up bite-size pieces for voters to consider in coming years.

Similarly, Svorinich argues that the leaner charter may be easier to handle but still is not an improvement. “Just because it’s a smaller document doesn’t make it a better document,” he said.

As those arguments make clear, supporters of the proposed charter are countered mainly by council members, city unions and a few key lobbyists, who together have paid for virtually the entire campaign against the charter. Council President John Ferraro alone has chipped in at least $60,000, and his longtime friend and ally, lobbyist Neil Papiano, has contributed $10,000.

Those contributions make up more than a third of all the money that the anti-charter forces have reported. Add in the loans and donations by other council members and lobbyists, and it’s clear that there would be no visible campaign against the charter were it not for that alliance.

On the other side are the three Los Angeles officials elected by citywide constituencies--Riordan, City Atty. James K. Hahn and Controller Rick Tuttle--as well as an array of civic and religious leaders who see the charter as a key to the city’s future and who, most notably Riordan, have turned to wealthy executives to pay for an advertising blitz.

Those executives in many cases possess large personal fortunes, and some of their contributions reflect it. Most controversial has been a $200,000 donation from Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Dodgers and Fox Studios and Broadcasting and a friend of Riordan.

Steven Afriat, the consultant who is running the anti-charter campaign, came upon the $200,000 contribution by Delaware-based DLO Corp. in one of the pro-charter disclosure statements and branded it secretive and sinister. It was evidence, he said, of a secret government working to overthrow the status quo.

Although Bill Wardlaw, who is Riordan’s best friend and closest advisor, immediately confirmed that DLO Corp. belonged to Murdoch and emphasized that Murdoch is a friend of the mayor and a man with significant interest in Los Angeles, critics continued to argue that there was something suspicious about the donation.

Svorinich called for an investigation by the city Ethics Commission. Councilwoman Laura Chick, nominally uncommitted on the charter, nevertheless blasted Riordan from the council floor.

Deputy Mayor Noelia Rodriguez, on leave to help the charter campaign, said that far from being chastened by the criticism, Riordan was proud to receive that contribution from Murdoch.

“One of the things that Mayor Riordan has been able to do is involve people in city government who were not part of the process,” she said. “That is good for Los Angeles.”

As large as Murdoch’s contribution was--it was bigger than any other loan or donation to either side of the campaign--it was just one of scores to the pro-charter campaign.

Other major contributions have come from car dealer and San Fernando Valley secession advocate Bert Boeckmann ($12,500), billionaire oil magnate Marvin Davis ($25,000), billionaire telecommunications player Gary Winnick ($25,000) and Majestic Realty ($25,000), whose chief is Ed Roski, part of a group seeking to bring a professional football team to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Two firms associated with Roski’s partner in that effort, Eli Broad, gave a combined $45,000.

Other major donors include billionaire Spanish-language television executive Jerry Perenchio, who gave $100,000, Bank of America, which gave $40,000, and the Los Angeles Business Advisors, a group of Los Angeles chief executive officers, which donated $50,000. The Los Angeles Business Advisors membership includes Mark Willes, chief executive officer of Times Mirror Co., which owns The Times.

The money flowing to the pro-charter campaign has allowed it to mount a far bigger effort than that assembled by opponents. Advertisements supporting the charter have been running on ESPN and other cable television stations, and more hit the airwaves last week, with some specifically directed at the San Fernando Valley, where voter turnout generally is higher than in the rest of the city. Radio advertisements have been airing on all-news stations and those with large numbers of African American listeners. Mail, targeted first at older, high-propensity voters and then at others, has been arriving for a week or so now. Telephone banks are also operating.

Unions Have a Change of Heart

The most conspicuous chink in the pro-charter effort’s armor has been organized labor, which at first supported the charter and then, after council members began lining up against it, decided to oppose it.

The unions’ flip-flop gave opponents a potentially important ally, as labor in recent years has played an increasingly vital role in local elections. But the unions’ late change of heart has to some extent tempered the practical effect of their position.

Goldberg and other council members fervently denied that they had pressured the unions into changing position, but Councilman Joel Wachs, in announcing his decision to quit his post as council president pro tem last week, said his colleagues had practically resorted to blackmail in pressuring the city unions, which negotiate their contracts with the council.

In fact, Goldberg’s denials have not convinced even some of organized labor’s most reliable allies.

Take Harold Meyerson, the executive editor of the L.A. Weekly and a respected liberal voice in the city. Meyerson wrote last week in an article headlined “The Irked and the Jerked,” that the city unions, most notably the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union headed by Julie Butcher, had turned against the charter not out of principle but out of necessity.

“In the choices that Butcher’s union made . . . on the charter, it chose to appease [Councilman Richard] Alatorre and other council allies rather than stand up . . . for a charter in which it actually believed,” Meyerson wrote.

In the end, supporters and opponents of the charter agree on few things, but one is that Tuesday’s vote will, to a large degree, chart the future of the nation’s second-largest city. Adoption of the charter would complete Riordan’s self-proclaimed “year of reform” and launch the city on its second century with a new working constitution. Rejection would preserve the status quo, protecting it from what critics see as an ill-conceived attack but allowing voters to consider charter amendments in future years.

“You have to vote on June 8,” Riordan implored voters. “This may be the last chance for another 75 years” to overhaul the charter.

Svorinich, who disagrees with Riordan on just about every aspect of the reform measure, joined with him in the assessment of what’s at stake this week.

“For most of us,” Svorinich said, “this is probably the most important election that we will ever vote in. This will decide the constitution for our city.”

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Key City Charter Proposals

ISSUE

Create area planning commissions

Create Neighborhood Empowerment Department and councils

Give mayor more power to fire department heads, subject to council veto

Clarify the role of the Police Commission’s inspector general

Require the city to pay workers and contractors a “living wage”

Require the city controller to conduct performance audits of city departments

Allow voters to enlarge the size of the City Council*

*

PRO

Will decentralize planning decisions, allowing areas of the city to have a greater role in determining the nature and extent of growth.

Gives residents, businesses, church groups and others a formal way of participating in local politics.

Supporters say this is a minor boost to mayoral authority that will help strengthen the mayor’s management of the city while still preserving the council’s check over any abuse of power.

Will make it harder for commission to halt investigations and allow inspector general greater latitude to investigate the LAPD and report to the public.

Supporters of the “living wage” say including it in the charter will make Los Angeles the first city in the nation to make that idea a core principle.

Regular audits will uncover corruption and fraud, saving taxpayers money and making the city more efficient.

A larger council would mean smaller districts, allowing elected officials to be more responsive. Today’s City Council members represent larger districts than any other council members in the country.

*

CON

Does not go far enough toward giving neighborhoods autonomy.

Because the councils will only be advisory, their effectiveness will be limited and some may be dominated by interests outside their neighborhoods.

Some argue that this provision, combined with others strengthening mayoral authority, will go too far to tip the balance of power at City Hall; others complain that it does not go far enough.

Even charter critics support these moves, but say they could be adopted without adoption of the entire charter.

Some opponents say “living wage” ordinances are ill-advised attempts to dictate to salaries to the business community.

Nothing in the current charter prevents these audits from being performed; a new charter is not needed to accomplish it.

A larger council might cost more money, taking dollars that could be used for police, fire or other high-priority services.

* Even some supporters of a larger council say the commissions bungled this issue. Voters will be allowed to endorse 21 seats or 25 seats, but many advocates of an enlarged council worry that supporters of one size will cancel out supporters of the other, leaving the status quo of 15 members to prevail.