Mayoral Foes Debate Land, Water Questions

City Atty. James K. Hahn, a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, faced skeptical questions Tuesday about his office’s purported failure on two environmental issues: supporting the cleanup of storm water that empties into the ocean and requiring a full environmental review for a controversial industrial development near Chinatown.

Appearing at a debate of leading mayoral candidates, two lawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Council asked the would-be mayors, but most pointedly Hahn, about their stands on key environmental questions. Of Hahn, they wanted to know: Why had the city attorney not insisted on the comprehensive environmental review for a plan to build an industrial park on 50 acres near Chinatown? And why had lawyers on his staff failed to fight efforts by a coalition of cities that challenged storm water cleanup regulations?

Hahn told an audience of more than 100 environmental activists that he welcomes an environmental review of the so-called “Cornfield” industrial project near Chinatown. He said alternative uses for the property, such as parkland, might be wise. He added that he has long supported higher standards for reducing pollutants in storm water.

But Hahn added that his ability to strike his own path has sometimes been limited because he acts as the legal representative for his “clients,” the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Richard Riordan.

“As mayor,” he said, “I get to be the client. And I can’t wait for that day.”

Under a Hahn administration, among other things, the city would set its own storm water cleanup policies and drop out of the municipal alliance, a spokesman for Hahn said.

But after the forum, co-sponsored by the environmental group Heal the Bay, one of the attorneys said he did not find Hahn’s response satisfactory. “He is the lawyer for a client, but he also has to give the client advice that they sometimes don’t want to hear,” said Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The city attorney of Los Angeles also has to take policy positions on what is correct and legal and to support the California Environmental Quality Act.”

Reynolds represents a group of environmentalists and activists that has been fighting for a park, schools, housing and other public uses on the Chinatown property, an abandoned railroad yard on the site of a turn-of-the-century cornfield. The group has sued for completion of an environmental impact report on the project, proposed by developer Ed Roski Jr., whose family gave $4,000 to Hahn’s campaign in 1999. (Campaign disclosure statements for the last half of 2000 are due today.)

Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay, said he thought the session provided a spotlight that will make environmental concerns “major, major issues in the mayor’s race.”

Even one of the more conservative candidates in the field, commercial real estate broker Steve Soboroff, said he would appoint a deputy mayor for environmental issues. And state Controller Kathleen Connell said she would focus on the issues with a special office and an “environmental summit” during her first month in office.

The sticky questions for Hahn were among the first, after more than 20 debates, that called into question his record during two terms as city attorney. City Councilman Joel Wachs, himself a 30-year veteran at City Hall, also took up the critique, saying Hahn’s office too often recommends the City Council meet in closed session to discuss environmental and other issues.

Wachs said that despite a law allowing the council to discuss litigation and personnel questions in private, the closed sessions are often unnecessary. “We never have this discussion out in public, like we should,” Wachs said.

Hahn did not respond to that comment. But before the critical questions at the end of the debate, he emphasized positions he has taken to protect the environment in the face of potential backlash.

He said he supported sewer service charges, fought by many businesses and some homeowners, because “we have to have some sort of cost recovery so we can pay for the important upgrade and rehabilitation of these major systems.”

He reminded the audience that he had fought against efforts by the Riordan administration to defer some of the improvements to the Hyperion Treatment Plant near El Segundo, ensuring the highest level of treatment for waste to be dumped in the ocean.

And Hahn recalled an earlier fight, when he was city controller. He said he tried to transfer park development funds to some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, only to be rebuffed by City Council members who wanted to prevent funds from leaving their districts.

Those comments won a warm response from the audience, as did the other candidates when reviewing their records.

Wachs said he had blocked aerial spraying of the pesticide malathion and was part of a minority vote on the City Council against the Cornfield development. “You can talk about having a vision for the environment,” Wachs said, “but to make that a reality, the mayor has to have the courage and the commitment and the proven record of standing up for that vision.”

Antonio Villaraigosa rolled out a long list of park and environmental projects he helped fund when he was in the Legislature, including a $2.1-billion park bond approved by voters last year and an $88-million appropriation to create an “emerald necklace” of parks along the Los Angeles River.

Soboroff cautioned that public money will not always be available for such major park improvements and that leaders must think more creatively. He described a plan he has encouraged as chairman of the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission to replace 20 million square feet of asphalt in 437 city schools with grass and trees. On the hot-button question of the Cornfield project, Soboroff said he will do more to resolve that dispute than the others because he is helping negotiate a deal to purchase the property for public use.

“Others talked,” Soboroff said, repeating a frequent theme. “I acted.”

Connell described her efforts as a state official to block oil drilling off the California coast. More recently, she said, she called a public hearing on the Playa Vista development project near Marina del Rey and suggested more can be done to keep the land free from development.

Although Connell said she is still considering exactly what action to take, she told the audience that she believes more than 1,000 acres can be preserved as open space.

“That will be over 1,000 acres of land that will be available to our children and grandchildren,” Connell said, “and make it the largest area of open space in the city of Los Angeles.”

Public officials have previously said that a maximum of about 700 acres of the 1,087 in the project area might be kept open. A Connell spokesman said it was not the controller’s intention to suggest the entire property would go undeveloped, but merely to support “as much green space as possible.”

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Times staff writer Jeff Rabin contributed to this story.