Into the Home Stretch

In less than one month, voters will elect a new mayor of Los Angeles. In the few weeks prior to the June 5 runoff election, James K. Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa must lay out a compelling and specific vision, not in commercials, slick mailers or sound bites but in forums and debates where they can be challenged.

The next mayor needs to be a good listener who will govern decisively. He must be secure enough to admit when he is wrong and courageous enough to take a politically unpopular stand. It’s so easy to pander to the loudest voices in this diverse city. He must resist.

The first mayoral debate is scheduled for Tuesday at the University of Southern California. Debates let voters see how candidates respond under pressure to what we hope will be tough and sometimes unpredictable questions. Which candidate dances around answering the question? Which candidate gives generalized responses designed to say as little as possible? That would be politics as usual, but Los Angeles can’t afford that.

Who in Los Angeles is not growing anxious about the energy crisis, an emergency that threatens the economic health of California? Statewide fiscal problems won’t stop at city boundaries, even though the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power can provide enough electricity for residents and businesses for the foreseeable future. How will the next mayor shepherd L.A.’s resources?

More people have jobs than at any other time in the city’s history. Mayor Richard Riordan took charge during a recession and got a huge boost from a booming national recovery, a strong state rebound and the dot-com revolution. How will the next mayor replicate that trajectory, or at least keep L.A. business-friendly?

Can Villaraigosa stand up to the unions? He got his start in labor and capitalized during the mayoral primary on lucrative support from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Of course he’s for fair wages. Who isn’t? But a tilt too far could kills jobs.

Hahn also has labor backers, most notably the Los Angeles Police Protective League. He supports the police union’s request for a three-day, 12-hour compressed work schedule. If elected, would he be willing to break that promise if he determined it was not in the best interest of public safety?

The union also wants Police Chief Bernard C. Parks out. Will Hahn be willing to stand up to a key part of his constituency--African American voters--if he decides the Los Angeles Police Department needs new leadership?

Education has replaced crime as the No. 1 political issue. Both candidates promise to help schools, although the City Charter limits the mayor’s role in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which sprawls well beyond city boundaries. The next mayor should heed the advice of school board member Caprice Young, who has not endorsed in this race. She recently outlined on the Times Op-ed Page a number of things--in much greater detail than any candidate has proposed--to help students. Her suggestions include increasing school safety, expanding after-school programs, enriching libraries, developing parks and helping the district find land for additional schools.

New schools can’t be built without taking land, and often that means knocking down existing housing. What’s the next mayor going to do? The chronic shortage of affordable apartments and homes for middle-class and low-income families keeps getting worse, forcing more families to live in garages, in unhealthy and crowded conditions or miles from work.

Not even the mayor can escape the city’s impossible traffic. Both Hahn and Villaraigosa support more buses and a new light-rail line from near the USC campus to the beach. What else can be done to stop gridlock on city streets--and gridlock near and inside LAX? Airport expansion isn’t a sexy topic, but a no-growth, head-in-the-sand approach won’t squelch traffic coming in or out of the Los Angeles area. It’s easy to say that airport traffic is a regional problem. The hard part for the next mayor: What will you do to ensure cooperation throughout the region, outside of the Los Angeles city limits? The mayor of Los Angeles must be a regional leader, one of the most important elected officials in the state. As such, he must persuade and cajole, from Palmdale to Burbank to El Segundo to Ontario to Orange County, if the regional airport conundrum is to be solved.

These are tough issues, most of them ignored or barely mentioned so far. Los Angeles is waiting to hear--in the debates and forums of the next few weeks--who is best suited to lead.