Mayoral Candidates Cover Familiar Ground in Another Corner of L.A.

The five leading Los Angeles mayoral candidates met Tuesday for a second consecutive night, trying to outdo each other in promising to hire more police officers, ease traffic and fix the city’s schools.

As they did Monday in a televised debate before a live audience, City Councilmen Antonio Villaraigosa and Bernard C. Parks, state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley) and former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg tried to make the case that they should replace Mayor James K. Hahn.

The mayor, meanwhile, defended his record and dismissed three of his challengers as “Sacramento politicians” who “reach into your pockets.”

That characterization, which Hahn has wielded repeatedly, so annoyed Hertzberg that at one point he grabbed the one microphone and delivered an impromptu rebuttal.

“I didn’t hear him say that when he was in Sacramento at a fundraiser,” retorted Hertzberg, who represented the San Fernando Valley in the Assembly from 1996 to 2002. “I’m telling you, when I was in Sacramento, we delivered big time for the people of L.A.”

The debate, four weeks to the day before the March 8 election, was held in the aging auditorium at Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood. It was sponsored by a host of neighborhood groups, among them the Studio City Residents Assn., the Studio City Chamber of Commerce and the Studio City Armenia Relief Society, as well as the local PTA.

More than 200 people crowded into the room as Ken Bernstein, the director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, posed questions on the success of neighborhood councils and whether the city’s streets are safer.

The debate was the sixth forum that included all five top candidates. Two more are scheduled later this month.

The event began about 20 minutes late because several candidates were caught in traffic on the 101 Freeway, prompting impassioned promises to improve the situation.

Parks said the freeway must be fixed. Otherwise, he said, “we might as well gate it and call it a parking lot.”

The debate’s beginning was marred by a malfunctioning sound system, which alternately turned candidates’ voices into high-pitched shrieks or muted them entirely.

Alarcon’s first promise of the night was to “get a new sound system at Walter Reed.” That prompted Hertzberg -- who has been the most vociferous proponent of asserting control over the Los Angeles Unified School District -- to quip: “Wait a minute. The mayor has no authority over the school system.”

Hertzberg has promised, if he is elected mayor, to lead an effort to break up the sprawling school system into smaller districts.

Many who attended the debate were thrilled that the candidates journeyed to their neighborhood.

“I liked more than one. I truly have not decided,” said Barbara Monahan Burke, 59, of Studio City.

Katrina Kelly, 28, also of Studio City, said, “I would have wanted to hear a lot more of the answers to be more specific to Studio City.”

The debate, however, broke no new ground. The candidates, for the most part, delivered familiar sound bites.

“We’re not as safe as we were four years ago,” said Parks, the former police chief who was not supported by Hahn.

Noting that many officers work three-day weeks while most voters work five-day weeks, Parks said: “We cannot continue to tolerate officers working part-time.”

The city’s crime rate has declined in the last two years, but Parks has repeatedly pointed out that the homicide rate is still higher than it was under former Mayor Richard Riordan.

“Crime is down,” said Hahn, who has made his record on crime and his decision to hire Police Chief William J. Bratton the center of his reelection campaign. “Arrests are up. Crime is down. That is the proof that what we are doing is working.”

The candidates were all asked to describe themselves in three words. Only Parks was able to come close.

“Leadership, integrity and performance,” he said, drawing applause from the audience. The other candidates missed the mark by many words.

Near the end of the debate, the five were also asked to tell the audience the one thing that the candidates didn’t want to say but that they thought the voters needed to hear.

“We can’t get government on the cheap,” Villaraigosa said. “We can’t say we want to do something about traffic and we don’t want to pay for a world-class public transit system.”

Hahn said Los Angeles must confront the inevitability of its growth head on.

“You can’t stop every development,” he said. “We need to build housing even if people say we don’t need housing.... We can’t stop the growth and roll back history.”

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Debate schedule

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Two more forums are planned before the March 8 election featuring the five major candidates.

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Tuesday: 7 a.m., “Conversation With the Candidates,” with host Doug McIntyre. Live on KABC-AM (790).

Feb. 28: 6:30 p.m. Second mayoral debate co-sponsored by KCBS-TV Channel 2, KCAL-TV Channel 9 and the Alliance of Neighborhood Councils. Live on KCBS.

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Los Angeles Times