Debate in Mayor Race Goes Beyond the LAPD

The five declared candidates for the job of Los Angeles mayor clashed over police reform and other law enforcement problems Tuesday evening but agreed on other pressing issues in a wide-ranging forum Tuesday evening.

It quickly became apparent that the five contenders, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), City Atty. James K. Hahn, businessman Steven Soboroff, Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) and City Councilman Joel Wachs, are more alike on many issues than they are different. Personalities and money may be determining factors in the race.

Although thorny law enforcement issues at first dominated the nearly two-hour forum, the candidates also discussed a variety of subjects that probably will set the grounds for the next round of debates.

The forum, which was attended by about 150 people at the Skirball Cultural Center, was sponsored by The Executives, a fund-raising arm and support group for the Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging in the San Fernando Valley.

With the City Council beginning deliberations Tuesday on a package of reforms for the Los Angeles Police Department, the candidates to succeed Mayor Richard Riordan tangled over just how to accomplish those changes in the LAPD. The federal government has threatened to sue the department on the grounds that it has engaged in a pattern or practice of civil rights violations. But many city officials hope to avoid a lawsuit by entering into a binding legal agreement, a consent decree. City officials, with Hahn as the lead, are negotiating with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Under a consent decree, the city would pledge to implement reforms in the Police Department and then give a federal judge and a monitor the authority to force the city to abide by its promises.

The issue is particularly important to the mayoral race because whoever is elected in April must deal with the consequences of the decision.

Soboroff, a commercial real estate broker who has Riordan’s backing, opposes a consent decree, referring repeatedly Tuesday to the case of Pittsburgh, which he said has more crime and arrests than ever under its negotiated settlement.

“Crime is up, not down,” Soboroff said. “Arrests up, not down. Crime rate down-that’s what we all want.”

Hahn and Wachs, however, say the department needs some form of negotiated agreements to ensure the department makes necessary changes.

Hahn said a partnership between the city and the federal government will ensure that happens. “We need to have assurances that we’re going to finish the job” of reforming the department, Hahn said.

Wachs agreed but went further saying the department cannot be expected to adequately implement reforms on its own.

“I don’t think it’s possible for the department to look at itself objectively,” Wachs said.

Becerra and Villaraigosa support the involvement of the federal government. Villaraigosa said, in fact, that the consent decree is the way to avoid a federal judge’s imposing reforms on the city.

To that point, Hahn and Soboroff clashed. Hahn said no lawyer believes this is a case the city would win and that the city has the chance to “negotiate something that’s enforceable . . . that’s real.”

But Soboroff challenged: “Since you’re the city attorney, you should know they always say that.”

On other issues, however, the candidates appeared more in agreement. They all dislike school vouchers, which would give public money to help parents send their children to private schools. As mayor, they all said, they would push for stronger schools--and more of them--even though they acknowledged that the mayor has an extremely limited role in Los Angeles schools.

Soboroff, however, was the only candidate to suggest that the only way to truly reform the district would be to break it up into smaller, “neighborhood” school systems. “Without that, you can turn the lights out on this city,” he said.

The others, however, said they believe the district needs to return more of its decision-making powers to the local schools, parents, principals and teachers.

“What we need to do is to try to improve every school for our children,” Becerra said. “I say that not as a member of Congress, not as a candidate for mayor but as a father . . . [of] two children in public schools.”

Wachs, who has been sharply critical of the mayor, went so far as to praise Riordan’s efforts to turnaround the massive city school district. But he said those efforts need to go further.

The candidates also strongly objected to the possibility of a Metropolitan Transportation Authority strike, saying the thousands and thousands of people who rely on public buses and rail lines deserve better.

Becerra said, the MTA is far too political and that more needs to be done to focus on the complex transportation issues for the city than the politics of it.

The candidates also agreed that the new City Charter, which was approved by voters last year, will help a new mayor to work more closely with the communities he will serve.

Villaraigosa said he believes the city needs better leadership and someone who can be a “bridge builder.”

In one of the lighter moments, Soboroff quickly added: “I thought you were talking about me.”

When it was over, an aide to one of the candidates said: “One down, 400 more to go.”