Police Reform, LAUSD Breakup Debated

The leading candidates for mayor of Los Angeles clashed Wednesday over how to reform police and schools, with City Atty. James K. Hahn threatening to seek breakup of the school district if dramatic improvement doesn’t happen soon.

Meeting in the San Fernando Valley, the birthplace of the movement to break up the city, five of the six leading contenders focused on issues of voter discontent and shoddy city services, with each contending to be better prepared to revamp City Hall and keep Los Angeles together.

Some of the sharpest exchanges during the forum at Cal State Northridge centered on the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District. Even though the mayor has no direct power over the schools, the school breakup proposal is a hot issue in the Valley.

Businessman Steve Soboroff told the 500 people in the audience that the only solution is to divide the school district into several smaller neighborhood districts and do away with the bloated downtown bureaucracy.

Hahn threatened for the first time to join the breakup movement if decentralization does not yield major improvements soon.

“If that doesn’t come to pass, I’m going to join the breakup movement,” he said. “I’m willing to give them a little time, but my patience is wearing thin.”

Hahn criticized Soboroff for the slow pace of school construction while Soboroff served on a school bond construction oversight committee.

A school district breakup was opposed by Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) and former Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa, who both said giving principals, teachers and parents more decision-making power is the answer.

Villaraigosa said he supports more after-school programs, while Becerra vowed to “get rid of the busing programs that take our kids away from their families and their neighborhoods and never allow parents to become part of the schools.”

State Controller Kathleen Connell, another mayoral candidate, did not directly address the breakup, but said she is overseeing a state audit of the schools that is identifying waste. She said she would streamline the city process to allow approval of new school projects in 90 days.

Connell earlier Wednesday delivered a $41,000 state check to a Northridge magnet school that her children attend, as part of the program that rewards schools for good test performances.

All five of the candidates who debated Wednesday oppose breaking up the city and vowed during the forum to cut the City Hall bureaucracy, improve basic city services and increase public involvement in government by pushing for strong neighborhood councils.

The candidates clashed again on the issue of reforming the Los Angeles Police Department after the Rampart scandal.

Soboroff said the city attorney and City Council failed to implement reforms recommended a decade ago by the Christopher Commission. Soboroff repudiated an agreement the city entered into under threat of a lawsuit by the federal government, saying the city should show leadership to turn around the LAPD.

Hahn accused City Councilman Joel Wachs, another mayoral candidate, of blocking his proposal for a charter amendment to provide a civilian disciplinary board for police cases so that officers and the public trust the system.

Becerra embraced the consent decree between the city and the U.S. Justice Department as important to make sure reform happens, and he said, if elected, “the consent decree will be implemented on time and on budget.”

Villaraigosa promised to “move full steam ahead with reform,” including swift implementation of a system providing computer tracking of police behavior. He also promised to implement a compressed work schedule to improve police officer morale.

Villaraigosa and Connell both denounced Mayor Richard Riordan’s decision to fire Police Commission President Gerald Chaleff as a setback for reform.

Connell said that if she is elected she will audit the department and meet with Chief Bernard Parks to tell him “whether or not we have the kind of service arrangements that are going to allow he and his senior officers to stay in positions of authority in the LAPD.”

The forum, which was sponsored by the Northeast San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce, was interrupted several times by two lesser-known mayoral candidates in the audience who denounced the decision not to let them participate on the stage.

Wachs missed Wednesday’s forum because of a fund-raising trip on the East Coast.