City Hall Takes Off on Summer Vacation

It’s vacation time at Los Angeles City Hall. For the next two weeks, the City Council is on hiatus. The hallways will be empty. Offices will be dark. And the city will be in the hands of . . . well, that takes some work to figure out.

The mayor is leaving Wednesday on an eight-day trip to Hawaii with his family. The City Council president will be rock climbing next week in Utah. If council President Pro Tem Mark Ridley-Thomas leaves the state, the title of acting mayor would go to Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, assistant president pro tem. But she’s going to be at her vacation home in New Mexico.

Next in the line of succession is the council member with the most seniority. If there’s a tie there, the title of acting mayor gets handed down in alphabetical order.

In this case, City Councilman Joel Wachs, with 30 years under his belt, would be running the show. If he’s gone, the title would go to Councilman Hal Bernson.

“Maybe if enough people left, we would have Nate [Holden] as mayor,” said Miscikowski, referring to the maverick councilman known for his tendency to stir up trouble. “That would make things exciting.”

All of that shouldn’t matter, because Ridley-Thomas says he is staying put. And, he says, he plans to enjoy his stint as acting mayor.

Asked what he had planned for the city, the councilman grinned broadly.

“Just watch and see,” said Ridley-Thomas, who backed Mayor James K. Hahn’s rival in the recent mayoral election and has clashed with council President Alex Padilla over recent committee assignments.

“While I’m the acting mayor, I plan to bring the Olympics back to Los Angeles,” Ridley-Thomas joked. “I also plan to put an initiative on the ballot to obliterate term limits.”

And the next time he finds himself in charge, Ridley-Thomas says, he will make sure Los Angeles gets an NFL team.

Ridley-Thomas inherits the job of acting mayor because Padilla is heading Monday to a vacation resort in St. George, Utah, for five days of hiking and rock climbing.

After a contentious first month as council president, Padilla said he is looking forward to a break from Los Angeles. But he admits he is also a little apprehensive.

“It will be my luck that an earthquake hits while I’m away,” he said wryly. Padilla will assume acting mayor duties for a few days, between the time he returns from Utah and Hahn returns from Hawaii on Aug. 30.

The mayor would not disclose which island he will visit with his wife, Monica, and their two children.

“He will be relaxing and spending some time with his family,” was all that spokeswoman Julie Wong would reveal.

Other city leaders have chosen vacations that suit their temperaments.

Miscikowski said she and her husband are going to spend some time at their home in Santa Fe, where they plan to visit a new Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at an art gallery and dodge the annual New Mexico rainstorms.

Councilman Eric Garcetti and his fiancee are going to Mexico for a few day to scout a location for their wedding. After their return, Garcetti plans to spend the rest of his time studying campaign finance laws across the country and finishing a musical he’s been writing.

As for Holden, he said he’ll be holed up in his garage, working on his 1965 Corvette.

Wachs will be on jury duty.

Some newly elected city officials said they want to use the time off to get up to speed on their jobs. Councilman Jack Weiss said he’s going to take his staff on a daylong bus tour of his district.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter said she is thinking about sticking around just to see what Ridley-Thomas does while he’s in charge. With the recent election of Padilla as council president, Galanter and Ridley-Thomas have both found themselves struggling to hang onto power under the new regime.

“We need to have a little talk,” Galanter told Ridley-Thomas as he made plans for his short mayoral tenure.

While acting mayors are rarely called on to make significant decisions, sometimes political rivalries flare when the mayor leaves town.

The late City Council President John Ferraro was infuriated in 1990 when Mark Fabiani, a top aide to Mayor Tom Bradley, tried to step in as mayor when Bradley left town, instead of handing power to Ferraro. A year later, when a bitter feud flared up between Bradley and then-Police Chief Daryl Gates, Bradley made Ferraro promise that he wouldn’t attempt to remove the mayor’s police commissioners while Bradley went on a two-week trade trip.

Sometimes those left in charge don’t want to hold onto the reins of power.

In October 1995, Mayor Richard Riordan cut short a two-week trade trip to Asia when a jury announced it had reached a verdict in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson. Wachs, then acting as mayor, feared a violent response and had urged Riordan to come home.

Los Angeles was quieter when Wachs ran the city in the summer of 1998 while Riordan was in Europe and council President Ferraro was out of town. But Wachs made some political hay at the nearly deserted City Hall. As a heat wave gripped the city, he held daily news briefings, warning residents about eating heavy meals and urging people to donate electric fans for the elderly.

The councilman’s staff issued a flurry of news releases that began: “Acting Mayor Joel Wachs gave his approval today to several important matters . . . .”