Hahn’s Antidote for L.A.

Mayor James K. Hahn’s inaugural speech, delivered Monday on the sun-baked steps of the restored City Hall, was short and gracious. It was the right antidote both for the temperature of the day and the temperament of the final days of his campaign.

Hahn named and thanked Los Angeles’ far-flung neighborhoods. Then he thanked them again in Spanish. The gesture both acknowledged the city’s growing Latino majority and reached out to supporters of Antonio Villaraigosa, many of whom had hoped to elect the first Latino mayor in modern times.

Hahn created a bitter rift when he defended late-in-the-campaign ads, paid for by some of his supporters, that played to negative stereotypes of Latinos. Monday he returned to his own and his family’s more characteristic role of bridging divides. He thanked Villaraigosa, who was present and took a bittersweet bow.

The priorities Hahn named in his short speech were specific and doable: improve the recruitment and retention of police officers while pressing reform within the department; streamline construction of new schools and expand after-school programs; fix streets and improve public transportation so that the city and its opportunities are accessible to all; make Los Angeles an entrepreneurial and business-friendly city as well as one that actively supports affordable housing.

Hahn pledged to give neighborhood councils the funding and attention they need to succeed and to work with the city attorney, the city controller and the City Council as part of “the Los Angeles team.”

He drew the loudest applause when he said he was committed to keeping the city together against threats of secession by the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and the harbor area, where he lives. He would do so, he said, by earning their trust, not by using scare tactics--a lesson, we can hope, from campaign mistakes.

Borrowing a simile from the late Mayor Tom Bradley, Hahn likened Los Angeles to a bumblebee that, unaware it is aerodynamically unsuited for flight, flies anyway. That notion could as well apply to the new mayor. Capable but low-key, he has surprised critics recently with his energy and enthusiasm. If he can inspire Angelenos, even those he alienated during the campaign, then the straightforward goals he laid out Monday will begin to seem possible.