Low-Key Mayor Taking On Much Higher Profile of Late

There was the mayor Monday, flanked by the police and fire chiefs outside the city’s emergency operations center, assuring residents that Los Angeles officials are taking steps to protect them from terrorist attacks.

On Tuesday, James K. Hahn visited a trade show at the Convention Center, where he praised the organizers for not letting jitters cancel their exhibition.

He toured the city’s water quality testing lab Wednesday and expressed confidence in the monitoring of the water supply.

In a burst of activity last week, Hahn used his position to calm an anxious city and begin charting a course through the current crisis.

During appearances at two town hall meetings broadcast on the radio, Hahn told residents that city leaders are prepared to handle an emergency.

“The city is safe,” he said on a KLAC-AM (570) show Thursday morning. “We’re going to do everything we can to keep it that way. Let us worry about that. We want people to go about their lives.”

The mayor’s increased public presence follows recent criticism that he did not show enough leadership during his first 100 days in office--particularly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Since then, Hahn has raised his public profile. In the process, the famously private mayor has also let down some of his personal reserve, sharing insights into how the attacks have affected him and his family.

“I think Jim Hahn is getting comfortable in being Mayor Hahn,” said Democratic political consultant Harvey Englander. “The mayor has been a very controlled person. . . . Now I think he is finally realizing that when he does let his guard down, he becomes more likable.”

When terrorists attacked New York and the Pentagon last month, Hahn was in Washington in the Old Executive Office Building across from the White House. He and other officials were quickly evacuated, and as they left the building, they could see smoke rising from the Pentagon. A White House aide next to the mayor burst into tears.

“That was a chilling moment,” Hahn said Wednesday night during a town hall meeting at the Southern California Institute of Architecture that was broadcast on KCRW-FM (89.9). The mayor said he was unnerved in the hours after the attacks.

On Thursday, KLAC’s Michael Jackson asked Hahn what the most difficult question posed by his two children was after the attacks.

“One of the things was the ‘why question’: Why did God let this happen?” Hahn said. “Since we’re a religious family, that’s a tough question.”

The mayor said he didn’t have an answer until he saw the Rev. Robert H. Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral speaking about the attacks.

“He said, ‘Remember, God wasn’t in those planes that crashed into the buildings,’ ” Hahn recalled. “ ‘God was in all those people who rushed into the buildings to save other people’s lives.’ ”

‘What We Want to Do Is Be Prepared’

The glimpses of how Hahn has handled himself as a father were brief, however, compared with the mayor’s repeated public appearances explaining the safety measures he and other city officials have taken.

Officials opened the emergency operations center Sunday when the American and British strikes against Afghanistan began, in case of possible retaliation.

The Police and Fire departments were put on tactical alert through the week, and concrete barricades were placed around City Hall.

“There is no indication of any threat, but what we want to do is be prepared,” Hahn said Monday, when he was joined by Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and Fire Chief William Bamattre outside the emergency center, four floors under City Hall.

“We want life to go on,” the mayor added. “We can’t just crawl into a hole. So I think what we want to do is affirm our freedom, affirm our lives, celebrate what this country is all about.”

The mayor has also been engaged in a national safety discussion in his role as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ task force on airport security. On Friday, he held a teleconference with other mayors to plot a strategy for lobbying House leaders on an airport security bill.

In addition, he spent much of the week calling for tolerance and restraint, and urging people not to take out anger on those who appear to be Middle Eastern.

During a lunch Thursday honoring a program that places at-risk youth and adults in construction jobs at the Playa Vista development on the Westside, the mayor said the current situation should remind Los Angeles residents to learn more about one another.

“Because of these freeways that divide our communities, sometimes we don’t become as aware as we should be of all the richness, all the diversity that represents this city,” Hahn said. “We don’t take the time to get to know our neighbor and figure out that we’re all in this together.”

Despite the emotional atmosphere, Hahn hasn’t altered his unadorned style.

He still speaks in plain terms, while other city leaders have been more eloquent and impassioned in their response to the crisis.

But at times, the mayor departed from his prepared statements and launched into more rhetorical language.

“These people who hate us are being lied to . . . that America is out to destroy you, out to destroy Islam,” Hahn said during “Which Way, L.A.?” on KCRW.

“In America, everyone is free to practice their faith. . . . We have stood as a beacon to so many parts of the world.

“We are not perfect,” he added. “We’ve made mistakes.

“But I still say there is no other place on Earth that gives the freedom and opportunity that America does, and we need to remember that. We are in the right.”