Mayor Reassures Commuters

Just one day after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pledged that he would be seen occasionally on bus and rail systems in town, he returned Thursday to the subway in the wake of the transit bombings in London.

Villaraigosa got moving early and took to the streets of his city, about 5,450 miles from London.

Villaraigosa was awakened at 3:30 a.m. by a call from police Chief William J. Bratton, who informed him of the attacks on London’s mass transit system. Less than three hours earlier, they had been talking on the phone about other police business.

The new mayor then spent two hours in briefings over the phone. By 6 a.m., he was at City Hall, meeting with Bratton and other officials.

By 7 a.m., he was holding a news conference. And a few minutes after 9 a.m., he was surrounded by a gaggle of TV cameras on the Red Line, reassuring subway riders that the city was working to keep them safe.

“You heard what happened in London today?” the mayor asked Nicole Miyoshi, 25.

As the mayor greeted passengers Thursday, Monique Lopez, 33, of Mount Washington, stood to give him a hug. “I’m just coming here to tell people it’s safe to be on the train,” said Villaraigosa, who also was on the subway Wednesday to promote public transit. “I’m here to calm the waters.”

It was, perhaps, more style than substance. But some observers said style can be an important factor for a mayor of a major city.

“It’s really awesome that he’s here,” Lopez said. “It makes me feel a little calmer.”

Security was increased at transit venues across the region, much of it set in motion without the mayor’s direct approval, although he was briefed on many elements of the plan. At a 4 p.m. briefing of city officials, Villaraigosa’s questions were short: How was the personnel department, for example, preparing to recruit volunteers should there be a big crisis?

When terrorists struck New York and the Pentagon in 2001 and the nation’s commercial air carriers were grounded, then-Mayor James K. Hahn was stuck in Washington, where he had traveled on city business. In Los Angeles, the job of assuaging nervous residents fell largely to Alex Padilla, president of the City Council.

Hahn was, by many accounts, highly involved in the city’s attempts to thwart terrorist attacks. But his public image as a competent, if uninspiring, technocrat did not always resonate with voters looking for an emotional anchor or someone to personify L.A.

In the year after the Sept. 11 attacks, Hahn said that anti-terrorism measures were “a top priority” for his administration. The city launched a $132-million project to protect the city water supply and a $133-million package of other high-priority security measures.

In 2003, he joined mayors of other large cities in criticizing the disbursement of federal anti-terror funds to cities, which they said were being caught up in bureaucratic red tape.

Those were real accomplishments, yet they weren’t enough to get him reelected and often seemed tangential to Hahn’s campaign last winter and spring.

“There was a time in California when we elected people who would basically not get in the way,” said Democratic strategist Darry Sragow, citing two former governors, George Deukmejian and Gray Davis, and Hahn. “That changed forever on Sept. 11, 2001. Voters want to be protected, they want somebody who’s going to be active and present and paying attention and ahead of the curve -- not just because of what’s happening in London.”

Big-city mayors often have stepped into the fray, notably former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. But it was also the sort of style perfected by a Giuliani predecessor and Villaraigosa hero, Fiorello LaGuardia.

LaGuardia, at a Radio City Music Hall performance, was once quoted as saying that local government must be run the way the organist was playing -- with “both hands on the keyboard and both feet on the pedals, and never let go.”

During the mayoral campaign this spring, Villaraigosa took great pains to portray himself as that sort of politician. While Villaraigosa supporters such as Rep. Maxine Waters lambasted incumbent Hahn for going to bed early, Villaraigosa embarked on 24-hour marathon tours of the city on a chartered bus.

A week ago, on Villaraigosa’s first day in office, he met with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for nearly 45 minutes. Neither said much about the discussion; Bloomberg said it was mostly a get-acquainted session.

On Thursday, Villaraigosa and Bloomberg reacted similarly to the news out of London. Bloomberg, too, was awakened with the news, in flight from Singapore, where the International Olympic Committee had awarded London, not New York, the 2012 Summer Games.

Patrols of the New York transit system were increased. Once on the ground, Bloomberg joined New York Gov. George Pataki for a news conference at Grand Central Station to reassure residents that it was safe to take the trains. And then both rode the subway.

In L.A., Villaraigosa’s ability to keep going -- or inability to stop -- has earned him praise from many quarters.

“I’ve never seen anyone this energized, going all the way back to [Mayor Tom] Bradley, and I was his press secretary,” said Joe Scott, a political columnist, blogger and communications director for the Los Angeles County district attorney, who added he was speaking as an individual.

At 3 p.m., Villaraigosa, along with Padilla, visited the British Consulate in a high-rise tower on Wilshire Boulevard in West L.A. They shared a few quiet words with the consulate general to the city, Bob Peirce. Then the new mayor went over to sign a book.

“On behalf of the people of Los Angeles, we extend our heartfelt sympathies and prayers to the people of London. May God be with you, Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of Los Angeles,” he wrote.

Then the mayor navigated a typical Westside traffic jam to return to City Hall, where he presided over a basement meeting of city general managers and the LAPD about the crisis in London.

Then it was back outside for a 5 p.m. news briefing, more business in the mayor’s office and finally, at 7 p.m., a resumption of his regular daily schedule, speaking at an AIDS Project Los Angeles event at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.