San Pedro Tells the Mayor It’s Nothing Personal

He could have lived in a three-story, city-owned Tudor mansion just minutes from his downtown office.

But when James K. Hahn became mayor of Los Angeles last year, he chose to stay in his snug tract house a few blocks from a sprawling oil refinery in San Pedro. It’s a 24-mile commute up the Harbor Freeway to work, but that’s not the worst of it.

San Pedro has been seized by secession fever, leaving Hahn to watch his own neighborhood try to escape the city he governs.

And if that happens, he could be forced to move to keep L.A. residency, a requirement for holding office. His sister, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who represents San Pedro, might have to decamp with him to keep her seat.

“I think Jim Hahn would do well to learn a lesson from Al Gore,” advised John Shallman, a Democratic political strategist. “Don’t forget your home. I mean, Al Gore lost Tennessee. If he had actually paid attention to his own backyard, he would be president of the United States right now.”

The harbor area’s fate is far from certain. The head of the state agency studying secession will decide later this week whether the proposed municipality could survive financially, a precursor to a citywide election on a breakup.

It’s nothing personal, Hahn’s secessionist neighbors say. The mayor’s a good guy. He shows up for the annual Fourth of July parties and chips in for burgers. He stops to chat when he’s walking his dog and sometimes hangs out with other parents at his 9-year-old son’s baseball games.

“We knew him long before he was mayor,” said Mary Bruno, 53. “We’re not running from Jim Hahn. But this is a chance for us to see what we can do. Being as Los Angeles is just so huge, we can’t implement our ideas right here. The bureaucracy just seems to get bigger and bigger.”

The push for San Fernando Valley cityhood is better known. Hollywood’s breakaway bid offers show-business sizzle. But the harbor secession movement--a drive to split San Pedro and Wilmington off from Los Angeles--is unfolding under the mayor’s nose.

Andy Mardesich, leader of the breakup crusade, lives right around the corner from Hahn. Dave Rivera, a retired mail carrier who wants to serve on a harbor city council, lives one street away.

Even Hahn’s next-door neighbor, air-conditioning repair student Alfonso Nuno, supports secession because the harbor area could “just do good on its own.”

Secessionists gathered the signatures of 13,470 registered voters, 25% of the harbor area’s total, to get the cityhood study underway. They hope to place the proposal on the November ballot.

It has all proved a bit awkward for the mayor, who has lived in San Pedro for 16 years. His roots are in South Los Angeles, where voters revered his late father, 10-term county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn. The son relied on his dad’s devoted African American base to help propel him into the mayor’s office.

So why does he live in San Pedro, a working-class neighborhood built by generations of Croatian, Portuguese and Italian fishing families beside a bustling port? He married a “Pedro girl,” as the locals say.

The chief executive of the nation’s second-largest city lives in a house about as distinctive as a box of oatmeal. The gray, three-bedroom abode, built in 1961, belonged to the parents of Hahn’s wife, Monica, who gave it to her.

The mayor insists that he gives plenty of attention to the harbor area, home to about 140,000. He helped launch a community advisory group to grapple with port problems. Three of the five harbor commissioners he appointed are from the area. He’s trying to develop the waterfront with a promenade and clean up storage tanks of hazardous materials.

Many neighbors say they don’t discuss politics with Hahn. Who wants to bug him while he’s taking out his trash? But Mardesich relishes the confrontations.

“For a while there, when he’d see me downtown, he’d yell, ‘Hi, neighbor!’ I’d just say hi and then I’d [complain] about Los Angeles,” Mardesich said. “He’d say, ‘It’s your town!’ and I’d say, ‘Not for long!’”

The mayor’s younger sister, who was elected to the council last year, says she’s determined to show San Pedrans that Los Angeles provides better services than a harbor city.

“They’ve got a political system that’s extremely favorable to them right now,” she said. “The mayor lives here, his kids go to local schools, the councilwoman lives here. Even our mom lives here! This is the opportunity to have the kind of clout and get the ear of the politicians like we’ve never had before. I think a lot of people are thinking this may be a bad time to break away.”

The true depth of Pedro pain may never be known. If state analysts decide the harbor city would outspend its revenue, secession won’t even make the ballot.

City lawyers haven’t determined for certain whether the residency rules would require Hahn to leave San Pedro if the area quits L.A.

If so, would he head to Getty House, the official mayoral mansion in Windsor Square?

“Yeah, I guess,” Hahn said. “But that’s not going to happen if I have anything to say about it.”