Mayoral Foes Try to Ignite Early Interest

Six would-be mayors of Los Angeles have been traveling their own obscure campaign circuit for months now, doggedly debating each other before a few of the more curious citizens of Los Angeles and longing for the day when the rest of the city might pay them a little closer attention.

While the 20 forums in church auditoriums, synagogues, downtown offices and school multipurpose rooms have lit few sparks among the opponents, the city’s mayoral hopefuls have revealed quite a bit of themselves, in ways quirky, mundane and, sometimes, significant.

Real estate broker Steven Soboroff has emerged as the most aggressive debater. The least-known and the least politically experienced contender has often outshone his rivals by answering questions with pith, vigor and humor. But his ongoing feud with City Councilman Joel Wachs has antagonized some audiences.

State Controller Kathleen Connell also has made a distinct mark, not just as the only woman among five men, but as the fiercest critic of the status quo. Connell sees a city abysmally managed and in crisis--infusing the message with occasional exaggerations.

Wachs has promoted his image as the indignant protector of the public purse. He recalls his battles over taxpayer subsidies for both last summer’s Democratic National Convention and Staples Center.

The three other major candidates in the race--City Atty. James K. Hahn, former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra--have been less likely to attack City Hall or other candidates.

The generally polite story line of most of the encounters has been leavened with a tense subplot--the animosity between Wachs and Soboroff.

The 30-year city councilman and the Republican parks commissioner are expected to compete fiercely for many of the same voters--particularly conservatives in the San Fernando Valley. They have clashed in the past, especially when Soboroff was one of the prime backers of building Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles and Wachs protested the use of public funds to finance the arena.

In the debates, the two often snipe at each other over the arena deal, the use of public financing in the campaign and a host of other topics. At the San Pedro forum Monday night, Soboroff accused Wachs of failing to create neighborhood councils in his district, even as he trumpeted the idea citywide.

“If you stop, Joel, making up falsehoods about how you saved any money with Staples Center . . . then I will stop telling the truth about how, with neighborhood councils, you’ve been talking about it for eight years, and only gotten four done, none in your own area,” Soboroff said.

Several minutes later, when it was his turn to speak, Wachs fired back, insisting that he never opposed the concept of a sports arena.

“I simply couldn’t believe that with all the pressing needs in our society, you’d want your hard-earned tax money going to billionaire team owners and gazillionaire players when we need books in the schools and cops in the streets and after-school programs for our kids,” he retorted breathlessly, drawing loud cheers and applause.

When Soboroff continued to attack during many of his later responses, the audience booed and one man yelled, “Give it a rest!”

But Soboroff has often pleased audiences with his disarmingly direct and simple answers. When asked by downtown Rotarians if he supported the Los Angeles City Council’s decision to begin charging the Boy Scouts for use of city facilities because the organization bans gay leaders, Soboroff alone answered: “No.” He said the decision punished kids for their elders’ mistake.

When asked about gridlock at the city’s worst intersections, he noted that Los Angeles often doesn’t employ a simple, low-tech solution popular in other cities: deploying officers to direct traffic.

And he has a neat description for the disaffected Angelenos who have launched city secession drives: They’re like the guy who put a dollar in a change machine and got only two quarters back. Secession is just their way of kicking the machine.

If Soboroff offers himself as the can-do businessman, Connell suggests that she would be the take-no-prisoners administrator. She outlines the city’s problems starkly: The Metropolitan Transit Authority has built “a subway to nowhere.” The school district’s Belmont Learning Center is “a palace, where children will never go to school.” And the Police Department, worst of all, “has failed Los Angeles.”

In Brentwood, none of her opponents challenged Connell’s assertions, remaining mute even when she offered: “L.A. is now the crime capital of the country. We are the murder capital of the country.”

Actually, Los Angeles is neither the crime capital nor the murder capital of America. Statistics at the end of last year showed that Los Angeles had a lower murder rate than many big cities, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas and Philadelphia. And its rate of serious crimes, as compiled by the FBI in 1999, was only a fraction of those in Atlanta, Dallas and Philadelphia.

Yet Connell argued that Los Angeles is a “city under siege and a city where people are going to flee.” She suggested that only tough management, like hers, can spare the city more anguish. She said she would solve most problems by ordering a performance audit of each major department and then insisting on better ways of doing business.

Kam Kuwata, spokesman for the Hahn campaign, called such claims a “sky-is-falling” approach that he predicted will seem overwrought to many residents who will be more worried about hearing solutions.

Hahn has presented himself as a much more careful candidate. He tells audiences that he is the able administrator of the city attorney’s office who has the experience to run the rest of city government. Angelenos don’t want a mayor who needs “on-the-job training,” Hahn declares, echoing a claim former Vice President Al Gore made about his presidential rival, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

The 20-year City Hall veteran leaves an overall impression that is neither as boring as his competitors had hoped, nor as dynamic as his backers would desire.

That leaves plenty of room for the more sweeping and grander approach that Villaraigosa, the former Assembly speaker, strives for most consistently.

“I believe this city is looking for a bridge; this city where we speak more than 144 languages, but oftentimes don’t speak with a common vision,” he said Monday night.

He talks about planting 1 million trees in the city and opening after-school programs at every school and expresses empathy for those well beyond his Latino base.

At one forum in South Los Angeles, a straw poll found the former legislator second most popular with the mostly African American audience, behind Hahn, whose base of support is in that community. At the Brentwood synagogue, Villaraigosa seemed at ease talking about a citywide mentoring program for young people as a manifestation of tikkun olam--the Jewish notion of repairing the world.

But as the campaign wears on, Villaraigosa frets that others are echoing his answers to questions, making it difficult for him to leave a mark.

Becerra, meanwhile, is fishing for a central theme that works, even as some of his proposals, big and small, enjoy a certain novelty. He would issue every schoolchild a card for the city’s public libraries. He would invest in making the Los Angeles Zoo the best in the country. And he would seek ways to have more police officers live in the city “so they will care more and identify more with the people and children on their beat.”

Several weeks ago, before the downtown Rotarians, Becerra tried to tie it all together under the heading of “the buck stops here.”

A few weeks later he told an audience that he was the champion of neighborhood empowerment, who will base all his decisions as mayor on what neighborhoods tell him is most important. He then proceeded to hammer on “neighborhood” proposals, sometimes tortuously bending his answers to fit the theme.

With no candidate gaining a clear advantage and public turnout sometimes sparse, they increasingly wonder how much time to devote to the debates. On Monday night, only a few dozen residents trickled into the cavernous Warner Grand Theater for a session that focused mostly on local issues.

Experienced politicos know that the mayor’s office will not necessarily go to the champion debater. Mayor Richard Riordan proved that by winning the office twice, despite consistently wooden performances in public.

Some campaign consultants urge their candidates to skip many of the sessions and instead spend their time raising money for television, radio and mail advertising.

Yet the candidates at times relish the public contact. And they fear the repercussions if they are seen as ducking an invitation. So they keep debating. And debating. And . . . forums are scheduled at the rate of every other day between now and the April 10 election.

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Times researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this story.