Mayoral Rivals Snipe in Press Conferences, Then Cool It in Debate

After a day in which the two mayoral candidates and their supporters heatedly argued, City Atty. James K. Hahn and former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa cooled down their rhetoric for a debate Tuesday evening, politely agreeing on many ways they would improve Los Angeles.

The demeanor of the two men during the forum at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School in Boyle Heights belied their sharp remarks earlier in the day. In dueling news conferences, Villaraigosa said Hahn had to take responsibility for the city’s ballooning liability costs, and Hahn defended a television commercial attacking Villaraigosa for writing a letter on behalf of a convicted drug trafficker.

But the fiercest language came from the candidates’ various backers. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) raised questions about Villaraigosa’s past, while former City Atty. Ira Reiner called Hahn “weak” and his latest commercial “creepy.”

After a day of passionate exchanges, however, the candidates put on a different face for the debate and those who tuned into it.

In front of an audience largely made up of enthusiastic Villaraigosa backers, the two candidates calmly discussed their positions on schools, a living wage and affordable housing. Each occasionally even applauded after his opponent spoke.

On almost every issue, the two mayoral hopefuls were in consensus. Both, for instance, said they would put more buses on the street and lower fares--a defining issue on Los Angeles’ Eastside, where many residents rely on public transportation but have little access to it.

“I want to concentrate on buses first,” Hahn said.

Villaraigosa said he would “put the bus rider and the people who ride transit above everything else.”

The fifth debate between the two men was broadcast in Spanish, and represented one of the rare campaign trips the candidates have made to the Eastside.

The day started off with sharp rhetoric, as Villaraigosa accused Hahn of being responsible for “an escalating liability” that could cost Los Angeles up to $1 billion.

“You can’t say on the one hand that you’re responsible for all the good things that happened in the city, and not accept responsibility for the things that have gone wrong,” Villaraigosa said during a morning news conference outside the Criminal Courts Building downtown. “I believe that it’s time for Mr. Hahn to accept that responsibility.”

The amount of money the city has paid to settle lawsuits and claims doubled between 1993 and 2000, to $116.4 million. While New York paid out twice as much as that last year, Los Angeles stills spends more on lawsuits and claims per capita than New York.

Critics say Hahn has contributed to the problem by hastily settling cases. The city attorney has countered that he has tried to reduce the city’s liability, but that several of his initiatives have stalled in City Hall.

“Jim Hahn has been weak,” Reiner said at the news conference. “Jim Hahn, in order to avoid the conflict of a trial . . . has rolled over and has paid out incredible sums that are unjustified.”

Reiner was one of a number of current and former law enforcement officials who gathered Tuesday morning to defend Villaraigosa’s record on crime. As they did, they denounced Hahn’s latest television ad, which shows images of a crack pipe and talks about a letter Villaraigosa wrote to the White House on behalf of a drug trafficker.

“Politics is supposed to be rough,” Reiner said. “But it does not have to be creepy.”

Villaraigosa also proposed upgrading the LAPD’s ability to conduct background checks on police officers and offered a new plan to crack down on illegal weapons, saying he would double the LAPD’s gun unit, which investigates black market gun dealers, from eight officers to 16.

Former state Atty. Gen. John Van De Kamp announced his endorsement of Villaraigosa, adding to the former legislator’s long list of prominent supporters. “He is going to be absolutely A-plus for law enforcement in this community,” Van De Kamp said.

Meanwhile, Hahn held a rally and news conference with a group of his supporters at his Crenshaw district headquarters Tuesday morning. A representative of the police officers union, an Asian-Pacific Islander activist group and a Sherman Oaks homeowners leader were among those reiterating their support for Hahn and stressing his long record in City Hall.

Waters said that despite Villaraigosa’s six years in the Legislature, nearly two years as Assembly speaker and long campaign for mayor, he was an unknown.

“Who is Antonio Villaraigosa? Where did he really come from? How much time has he spent in public service?” asked Waters.

Waters insisted she wasn’t trying to instill fear in voters, as Villaraigosa’s camp has said about such attacks previously, or sow racial divisions, as some commentators have suggested. “We need to know these things,” Waters said.

For his part, Hahn continued to defend his latest ad that says Villaraigosa can’t be trusted.

“Everything in [the ad] has been accurate and factual and is based on his own actions,” Hahn said.

Later, after the debate, the city attorney said both men’s records were open to scrutiny.

“He can attack my record; I can attack his record,” Hahn said, adding that he thought Villaraigosa’s efforts on behalf of Carlos Vignali were outrageous.

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Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this report.