Mayoral Candidates Promising the World

As he lumbers through a miniature Los Angeles in his new campaign ad, mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg calls the Los Angeles Unified School District a “failure” and makes a bold promise.

“I’ll break it up into smaller districts, for local control and better schools,” Hertzberg states flatly as his image looms over a brick school.

There’s only one problem: The mayor has no control over the sprawling school district, which is governed by an independently elected school board.

“He has no power to do that,” said Stephanie Brady, a spokeswoman for Supt. Roy Romer.

That hasn’t stopped Hertzberg from repeatedly touting his intention to break up the LAUSD. His claim is just one of several unlikely scenarios, farfetched ideas, and flat-out impossibilities being floated by the candidates vying for the mayor’s office.

State Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley) has proposed financing the hiring of 1,000 police officers in part by billing the city’s airport, port and Department of Water and Power up to $75 million each per year to cover homeland security costs -- a plan some city officials suggested is illegal.

Mayor James K. Hahn is pushing a plan to convert the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County into a commercial airport, despite the fact the Navy is now auctioning the land to private developers.

And several candidates have pledged they will reduce truck traffic on state freeways, arteries outside the city’s jurisdiction.

Implausible promises are a mainstay of politics, of course, but the brazenness of some of this campaign’s claims has struck some as startling.

Romer, who has had a long-working relationship with Hertzberg, was “stunned” to hear the former Assembly speaker’s claim that he would break up the school district, according to the superintendent’s spokeswoman.

“I think most everyone -- and that would include the superintendent -- knows that this is a political ploy that would most likely appeal to a voter base in the San Fernando Valley,” said Brady, referring to Hertzberg’s pitch for Valley conservatives.

Hertzberg spokesman Matt Szabo disputed this, saying the former lawmaker proposed the breakup because he believes it would create more governable school systems.

Four years ago, however, Hertzberg opposed a proposal to break up L.A. Unified when the matter came before state legislators.

At the time, he was hoping new reforms would change the system, but has since become convinced the district is unmanageable, Szabo said.

Szabo acknowledged that Hertzberg, as mayor, would not have the authority to split up the school district. He said Hertzberg would put the matter before voters, possibly as a charter amendment, or back a statewide initiative that would change the entire funding structure of education so that money for schools would be controlled by individual cities.

“So much of what the mayor does doesn’t involve direct authority,” Szabo said. “It involves marshaling support.... If you can’t think creatively, you should not be mayor.”

For his part, Alarcon’s plan to raise money for 1,000 new police officers by billing the city’s airport, harbor and Department of Water and Power for homeland security costs could run afoul of federal laws that prevent cities from transferring airport revenue to city coffers.

Alarcon said he was confident those rules could be changed, adding that the city has a much stronger argument after the 9/11 attacks on the importance of protecting facilities such as the airport.

Hahn waded into another matter under federal control with his plan for the now-defunct El Toro base. A day before the Navy began a public auction of the land last month, the mayor revived a proposal to transfer 3,700 acres of the base to the U.S. Department of Transportation, which could then lease it to the city for a commercial airport. The mayor has argued that building a new airport there would relieve congestion at Los Angeles International Airport.

Next week, a delegation of city officials -- including Councilman Tony Cardenas and Kim Day, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports -- is scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C., to lobby for the proposal. Hahn spokeswoman Elizabeth Kaltman said the agenda for the trip was still being confirmed but added that officials were hoping to meet with, among others, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

But Orange County has pledged to fight Hahn’s efforts, and the Navy has made it clear it has no intention to delay the auction -- scheduled to close Feb. 9 -- in order to consider Los Angeles’ proposal.

Meg Waters, spokeswoman for a coalition of 10 Orange County cities opposed to turning the base into an airport, called Hahn’s plan “a day late and a dollar short.”

Times staff writers Jessica Garrison, Noam N. Levey, Patrick McGreevy and Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this report.