State Official Connell Joins Crowded L.A. Mayor’s Race

State Controller Kathleen Connell, a veteran of statewide electoral politics with a reputation for intelligence and a sharp temper, announced her candidacy for mayor of Los Angeles on Wednesday, joining a crowded field that is off to an early and expensive start.

Connell, the only woman among the serious candidates for mayor, launched her campaign with three stops that emphasized the city’s diversity and her commitment to tapping it. She started the day in Van Nuys, where she fielded questions about San Fernando Valley secession; she lunched in Watts, where residents complained of declining city services; and she wrapped up the day in Pico-Union, where she visited with the staff of a popular community center for children known as Para Los Ninos.

At each stop, Connell sounded the central message of her campaign. Los Angeles city government, she said, has badly let down residents and desperately needs an experienced financial manager to put the city’s house back in order.

“Our city and its people need an experienced, independent leader, a tough fiscal watchdog with a record of cutting waste,” Connell said, her two young sons standing beside her in Van Nuys.

Though she never criticized Mayor Richard Riordan directly, Connell’s assessment of city government was damning: She described it as an institution that evokes more cynicism than gratitude and she complained of failed schools, a growing transportation crisis and a widening breakdown in the delivery of basic city services.

The police corruption scandal that has consumed much of the city government’s energy in recent months raises the stakes still higher, she said at each stop. Emerging from that scandal without cutting back other city services will take strict financial management, she said.

Connell, a Democrat, brings both formidable strengths and some conspicuous weaknesses to the campaign. As the only woman and the only statewide elected official in the race, she is clearly distinguished from the rest of the field. She also is, by all accounts, a smart, tough manager with broad political and governmental experience. Among other things, she runs audits of state and local operations throughout California, and she sits on 57 state boards that help coordinate services.

“I’m intimately aware of what works and what doesn’t work in cities in California,” she told about three dozen Watts residents.

But Connell labors under the relative obscurity of her office and its remote relationship to the urban issues that preoccupy Los Angeles. On Wednesday, she deflected direct questions about topics such as the consent decree on police reform being negotiated between the city and the federal government, an issue that local officials have wrestled with intensely in recent months but of which she demonstrated only passing knowledge.

Less concretely, Connell brings a difficult reputation to the campaign. She is unpopular with many colleagues and former employees. Her clashes with fellow state officials, including Gov. Gray Davis, are legendary.

“It appears, to many, that you like to browbeat and bully state employees,” state Treasurer Matt Fong wrote to her in 1996 during a spat between the two. “As a fellow elected constitutional officer, however, I will not allow you to browbeat my employees.”

Nevertheless, Connell already is showing up well in some private polls commissioned by labor and other interested groups tracking the mayor’s race. In fact, one has her running second to City Councilman Joel Wachs.

The other declared candidates are City Atty. James K. Hahn, Assemblyman and former Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra and commercial real estate broker Steve Soboroff.

Other polls, including one by The Times, have suggested that Hahn leads the pack, but is trailed closely by Wachs and not far by the rest of the field.

Several times Wednesday, Connell was pressed on her relatively late entry into the race. She avoided that question, noting that Riordan did not declare his candidacy until November 1993 and yet went on to win the election. Tom Bradley also declared late in his initial campaigns, she said, and still won.

This time, however, the field has gathered early and fund-raising has been underway in earnest for months. Soboroff, who has Riordan’s endorsement, got off to a fast start but lately has been eclipsed by Hahn, who now has about $1.4 million on hand for the race. Villaraigosa also has shown fund-raising prowess and has nearly $1 million in his coffers.

On Wednesday, Connell said she was confident that she would be able to raise whatever was required to get her message out between now and April, when voters will cast ballots in the mayor’s race. If no candidate wins outright in that election, a runoff will be held in June.

Barely had she jumped into the campaign, however, than Connell was faced with the reality of confronting the electorate. At the Watts Labor Community Action Committee in Watts, the controller received a mostly polite reception, though several people asked who she was as she threaded her way through the center’s dining room.

One woman, Toni Russell, complained bitterly about the end of senior citizens’ meals at a nearby center and of the failure of Mayor Riordan or City Councilwoman Rita Walters to respond to her community’s needs. Connell took down her name and promised to follow up.

Afterward, in a meeting with community representatives, Connell listened to complaints about problems in the area without volunteering much information of her own.

One participant quickly became fed up. She asked Connell where she lives and, told that her home is West Los Angeles, shrugged.

“My spirit is unsettled . . . because you don’t know” about the community, the woman said.

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Kathleen Connell

* Age: 53

* Residence: Los Angeles

* Education: PhD from UCLA

* Career highlights: Housing director to Mayor Tom Bradley, 1977-82. Elected state controller, 1994. Reelected in 1998, carrying 55 out of 58 counties, including Los Angeles.

* Family: Two grade-school-age sons.

* Quote: “It’s time for a new vision, a new voice and a renewed hope in City Hall.”