The Other Big L.A. Race

With voters focused on this year’s spirited race for mayor, candidates for the second-most-important job in Los Angeles have drawn little attention. Yet the two men in the runoff for city attorney present voters with a clear choice: Mike Feuer, whom we endorsed in April, is far better able to tackle the huge challenges now before the city. The Los Angeles city councilman has the independence, the management experience and the commitment to use that office to solve problems and improve services. He would not, unlike his opponent, enter office owing a huge political debt to big-money interests with business to conduct at the city attorney’s office.

Feuer’s rival, Deputy Mayor Rocky Delgadillo, has a solid record of bringing business development to under-served parts of the city and an interest in improving public education. But neither of these worthy goals is very relevant to the city attorney’s job. In addition, he has accepted $425,000 in free advertising from the billboard industry, the same folks who have pushed hard for a city ordinance that would permit more and bigger billboards and do little to reduce the city’s visual clutter.

Feuer is far better qualified by his legal and political experience to tackle the top priorities in the city attorney’s office--police reform and trimming the city’s mammoth liability payouts--now estimated at almost $1 billion.

The city attorney manages a staff of lawyers and others that totals nearly 1,000. The office provides legal counsel to all city departments and elected officials and prosecutes misdemeanor crimes that occur within city limits. But the city attorney wields power well beyond that barebones description. The next city attorney will have a central role in implementing the federal consent decree mandating police reforms. As a council member, Feuer helped craft the consent degree and supported it before his sometimes-hesitant colleagues.

Before joining the council in 1995, Feuer directed a public-interest law firm serving poor and elderly clients. That experience should help him cut the office’s big liability payouts in cases ranging from accidents to police misconduct.

Feuer authored the city’s farsighted gun ordinances, including curbs on handgun trafficking, trigger lock requirements and a ban on cheap, easily concealable pistols. He has pledged to help communities stop graffiti vandals, board up abandoned buildings and reduce the billboard blight that so angers local residents.

Feuer has been eager to talk about these issues. By contrast, Delgadillo has ducked all broadcast debate invitations. As a result, most voters will know him only by his billboard advertisements, mailers and television commercials.

Los Angeles would be best served by a city attorney committed to solving the most pressing issues before that office and who isn’t shy about debating them. Mike Feuer is that man.