Big Ideas, Small Steps by Hahn

Last fall, Mayor James K. Hahn made a series of decisive moves that held the promise of reshaping the city: He led the fight to beat back secession, hired a brash new police chief and pledged to redesign city government.

A year later, the fanfare has faded and Hahn’s administration has been characterized largely by notable setbacks and incremental steps forward on his major policy initiatives.

The mayor’s plan to expand the Los Angeles Police Department was put on hold by the City Council. His promise to revamp City Hall is moving ahead -- but at a pace some find painfully slow. And his $9-billion proposal to modernize Los Angeles International Airport has run into opposition.

Momentum has slowed for a variety of reasons, some beyond his control. A budget plagued by red ink has curtailed funding for new projects, and reforming the city’s entrenched bureaucracy takes time, as does propelling a massive public works effort like the airport project.

But the mayor’s sometimes rocky relationship with the City Council and his low-key style have been key factors as well.

Some elected officials have complained that he has shut them out on crucial issues such as the city’s budget and the airport plan. Others say a reluctance to seize the bully pulpit means that he has failed to provide strong leadership at crucial moments.

“There’s a lot of unanswered questions about what is our focus as a city,” Councilman Martin Ludlow said, adding: “My message to you, Jim Hahn, is ... be more bold. Be more ambitious and ... spend more quality time with the council members.”

The mayor and his allies dismiss such critiques as unfair, even infuriating, and say that if people looked beyond Hahn’s often-reserved style they would see he is overcoming a bleak financial situation and steadily fulfilling promises to boost public safety and empower neighborhoods.

“I think the mayor and the city have had a great year,” said Los Angeles businessman and philanthropist Eli Broad. “I think people feel ... considering the fiscal situation of various cities and states that we’re doing pretty well here.”

The mayor himself flew into a fury and ordered Times reporters out of his office when one asked him about criticism from council members that he had not been visible enough in the early hours of the strike that has crippled the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s bus and rail service.

“I think I do exactly what a mayor should do,” he shouted, his voice shaking with rage. “I think I am the best mayor I can be.... Everywhere I go in the city, people tell me I’m doing a great job.”

A few days later, Hahn said residents should know that just because he is not always leading the evening news does not mean he’s not working hard.

“My personality is my personality,” said Hahn, who is more than halfway through his term and is looking ahead to the March 2005 primary, when he will seek reelection.

Throughout his two decades in political office, Hahn said, “people always compared me to my dad,” the legendary Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

“You know, I’m not as folksy,” the mayor said. “I don’t have as many good stories to tell as he did. But the passion I have for trying to do good is the same passion. The drive to make things better is the same drive.”

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Standing on the south lawn of City Hall on July 2, 2001, his first day in office, Hahn promised a better working relationship with council members, who had often clashed with his predecessor, Richard Riordan.

But by last spring, it was clear that many on the council did not feel the mayor was working well with them.

Tensions came to a head over Hahn’s $5.1-billion spending plan for this year.

The City Council rejected his proposal to spend about $30 million to hire 320 new police officers this year. The mayor had proposed that the city pay for the new hires by making small increases in trash and sewer fees.

Council members balked amid fears that Hahn was failing to heed warnings that the city faced a potential shortfall of up to $280 million the following year. Many also complained that the mayor had excluded them from the planning process and that his office refused to address their concerns about projected deficits in future years.

Hahn went on the offensive, attempting to publicly pressure council members into following his lead. He released a letter accusing council President Alex Padilla of hindering public safety and took to the airwaves with his popular new chief, William Bratton, to upbraid council members for their reluctance to hire the police officers.

The strategy backfired, and a man known as the mildest of big city mayors suddenly faced a backlash for what some saw as acting like a bully. Council members easily mustered the votes to replace Hahn’s budget with their own, which delayed spending for new police officers until the financial picture became clearer.

That picture has become only bleaker in recent months. Earlier this fall the council slashed $47 million more from city coffers, making any expansion of services increasingly unlikely.

Hahn maintains that council members should have shown more faith in his goal of “wanting to win this war on crime in our communities.” He said the expansion would have helped pay for itself because safer streets would improve the business climate and result in more revenue for the city.

Despite not getting the officers he wanted, the mayor said he has made other strides in making streets safer. Recruitment of officers is up, the community policing program is back and Hahn’s office recently lobbied for and received an $18-million federal grant to hire more officers, which officials say could be used next year if the city can come up with the required matching funds.

In the wake of that budget defeat, the mayor has made a concerted effort to improve his relationships with council members, setting up meetings and lunches.

“There’s been a sea change,” Councilman Eric Garcetti said. “I think the mayor ... has reached out more and been more conciliatory than any time in the last 2 1/2years, and it’s been actually a lot of fun to collaborate.”

Ludlow and other council members, such as Jan Perry and Wendy Greuel, also credit the mayor with reaching out. Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, Hahn’s rival in the 2001 mayoral election, has appeared often with the mayor in recent weeks and says the two are “working well together.”

When it comes to Hahn’s $9-billion plan to modernize LAX, however, some key players say the mayor’s office once again failed to take a collaborative approach as it launched plans for the massive project.

To improve the airport and make it safer, Hahn wants to move two parallel runways farther apart, knock down three terminals and the central parking garages and replace them with a new terminal complex. His plan also calls for a new passenger check-in facility by the San Diego Freeway, connected to the main airport by a two-mile people mover.

Apart from a few political allies, business groups near the airport and labor unions that stand to gain from the massive public works project, the vast majority of those who have weighed in during the plan’s four-month public comment period are against it.

The county Board of Supervisors voted last month to oppose the proposal, and Supervisor Don Knabe said Hahn should have heeded county officials’ concerns that environmental studies of the plan were outdated and inadequate.

“He probably needs to be more personally engaged in some of these issues,” Knabe said.

Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, whose district includes the airport area and who is opposed to Hahn’s plan, said she and the mayor met on the proposal only after “our staffs came to some very harsh words” over concerns that Hahn’s deputies were not listening to her staff.

The mayor remains confident that his plan will prevail, and his office has put out public statements every week updating the list of groups endorsing it.

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Hahn entered office as the drive for secession was heating up, particularly in the San Fernando Valley. He led a high-energy campaign to defeat two ballot measures last November that would have split the city into pieces, adopting a frantic schedule of speeches and other public appearances as he made his case for keeping Los Angeles together.

Although many credit him with saving the city and pushing ahead with promised reforms, others grumbled that the mayor’s attention to the Valley went away the moment the threat of splitting the city disappeared.

During the secession campaign and in the days after, Hahn promised to address complaints that City Hall was out of touch with its far-flung constituents by decentralizing city services. He outlined a plan to create seven city halls where officials would customize tree trimming, street paving and other services to the specific needs of the local area.

A year later, three of those city halls have opened. Only one has been assigned a “neighborhood service manager” in charge of making sure areas get what they need.

But Hahn never promised the city halls would open within the year. And many civic leaders in the Valley and Hollywood, which also sought to secede, say they understand that the restructuring efforts will take time. The say they are impressed that Hahn appears to be sincerely trying to address their grievances.

“I really think the mayor has made a genuine effort of increasing his presence out here,” said Bruce Ackerman, chairman of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley.

In Granada Hills, a hotbed of secession in the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains, residents echoed that sentiment.

They said they were delighted at Hahn trekking out to a children’s garden in their community earlier this month to announce that he wanted the city to stop dumping trash at Sunshine Canyon by 2006.

Others, however, are not satisfied.

“He talks a good game, but there is very little follow-up action,” said Walter Prince, who is involved with the Northridge Neighborhood Council.

Hahn made a splash during the secession campaign by holding monthly meet-the-mayor events with residents, but Prince said that effort petered out.

The mayor did end the formal program of monthly meetings where any resident could schedule face-to-face sessions with him, but his deputies say he has gone out and met with larger groups of residents involved in the neighborhood council program.

For his part, the mayor said he is satisfied with the progress. He cautioned that building democratic institutions from scratch is never an easy process; nor is completely revamping a giant bureaucracy like City Hall’s.

“What is hard is we are trying to invent a new model here,” Hahn said. “I don’t think we are done.... I think we are fulfilling those promises. We are committed to listening, involving and responding in a much different way than we were before. That change is a real change in direction and one we are not going back on.”

Councilman Garcetti agreed -- saying Hahn is profoundly improving how the city delivers services -- but called it “a quiet revolution, not a big bang.”

And indeed, as the mayor would be the first to admit, big bangs are not really his style.

He is a nuts-and-bolts guy, with a slow, steady approach to government that has served him well in coasting to victory in six citywide elections.

Critics say Hahn has seemed preoccupied with political fund-raising this year. The mayor has been attending up to three fund-raisers a week, in part to dissuade anyone from challenging him for reelection in 2005. So far he has raised more than $430,000.

“Gray Davis was really focused on campaign fund-raising too, and look what happened to him,” Prince said.

Those close to the mayor deny that his fund-raising has distracted him from city problems.

They do say that Hahn had trouble making himself heard over the din of the debate involving the recall election and the campaign of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

One Hahn friend said there was also a period this summer when the mayor devoted extra energy to his family. Hahn and his wife announced in July that they were separating and that the two children would be living with their father.

“He spent a little more time making his family more comfortable,” said the supporter, who did not want to jeopardize the mayor’s friendship. “Now that has happened, so instead of going at 90 miles an hour, he is going at 100.”

Indeed, in recent weeks the mayor has appeared more energized, crisscrossing the city unveiling parks, rededicating a lighthouse and holding at least two news conferences on many days.

Stung by criticism that he was slow to weigh in publicly on the MTA and supermarket strikes -- he did not issue a public statement until 38 hours after the transit walkout was announced and 14 hours after it began -- Hahn held daily news conferences for a week pressuring the two sides to get together.

Then, the day after a hailstorm pounded Watts and neighboring communities last week, Hahn donned a pair of giant rubber boots and stomped through the slush consoling residents about water damage to their homes.

But Hahn and those close to him have made clear that he is not about to turn into a West Coast version of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

“He’s not Mr. Personality,” Councilman Dennis Zine said. “But he’s still a leader who can make things happen.”