Council Fails to Veto Renaming of Library for Mayor

Renaming the Los Angeles Central Library after Mayor Richard J. Riordan turned into a full-scale political battle for the City Council on Tuesday, but opponents failed to block the tribute.

For weeks, Riordan’s top City Hall aides have worked behind the scenes to complement a public effort by his friends to have the downtown landmark named after him. As the move came to a final council vote, they mounted a full-blown lobbying campaign to convince council members that Riordan deserved the honor.

Led by Deputy Mayors Ben Austin and Ann D’Amato, several dozen employees of the mayor’s office filled the council chambers, along with church, business and labor leaders whom they had summoned to join them.

In the end, the council voted 7 to 5 to veto the Library Commission’s approval of the new name. That was 3 votes short of the 10 needed to send the issue back to the commission for reconsideration. But the heated debate reflected some of the deep ill will toward Riordan that has built up among some council members during his nearly eight years as mayor.

“What’s going on is a couple council people want to be mean to the mayor,” said Eli Broad, a developer and friend of Riordan who led the effort to rename the library. “I think they just want to embarrass the mayor, which is sad.”

Leading the opposition was Councilwoman Rita Walters, whose district includes the library. She accused Riordan’s appointees on the Library Commission of rushing to rename the city’s flagship library last month with only one public hearing, rather than the customary two.

“This is not the way to go about honoring somebody,” Walters said. “It is the way to go about doing it if you’re pushing it through in a heavy-handed manner as some type of self-fulfilling legacy.”

Councilman Mike Feuer was equally blunt.

“Not only does it assault the dignity of the library and undermine the credibility of the commission to have this process proceed as it has,” he said, “it assaults the dignity and undermines the importance of the honor from Mayor Riordan’s standpoint. . . . Why would you want to be honored that way?”

Councilman Mike Hernandez, who favored renaming the library, said there was “no question” that “the mayor would like to see this happen.”

“I’m not that kind of person,” Hernandez went on. “My ego doesn’t say I need to have something named after me right now. But the bottom line is . . . I felt that this was a mayor who has contributed to the children.”

He cited Riordan’s contributions to literacy and education.

“I’m hoping that when God calls him back, he will consider the library as something to leave many of his millions to,” Hernandez said.

Councilman Hal Bernson, another supporter of renaming the library, said it would be unfair and inappropriate to veto the measure.

“It’s something the council really should stay out of,” he said.

Still, Bernson said that perhaps city commissioners should not vote to rename public buildings after the mayor who appointed them. And like Hernandez, he said he hadn’t realized that the library was already named after someone else: Rufus von KleinSmid, a former USC chancellor and city library commissioner.

John H. Welborne, the secretary of the Los Angeles Library Assn., invoked the memory of Von KleinSmid as he urged the council to overturn the commission’s approval.

“If no respect is shown now for the action of past commissions and councils, what is to keep a future commission, or a future council . . . from renaming the Richard J. Riordan Central Library after whoever is in favor then?” he asked. But Bishop Charles E. Blake of the West Angeles Church of God in Christ said the renaming was a fitting tribute to a champion of city schools.

“We named the terminal at the airport for Mayor Tom Bradley,” he said. “The library should be named after our mayor, who has served us so faithfully and sacrificially.”

Riordan, who celebrated his 71st birthday just after the council vote with a staff party at El Pueblo, has welcomed the library renaming.

“It’s an honor that I don’t necessarily deserve, but I’m very, very proud to receive it,” he said Friday.

Broad said the renaming was not proposed by the mayor, whom he called “an unassuming guy.” Broad said he asked aides to the mayor weeks ago for strategic guidance on winning the support of enough council members to avoid a veto.

“They were happy to give me information and be helpful, but they didn’t think they should be the most active party,” Broad said. “They didn’t want this to be read as the mayor groveling to get something named after him. And he wasn’t.”