Hot on mayor’s heels in Texas

I was having trouble getting the mayor’s attention in Los Angeles, so on Sunday I headed to where I figured he’d be a little more accessible.

Over the last two months, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been on Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign trail more than a quarter of the time, as my colleague Duke Helfand reported. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and, over the weekend, Texas.

When I landed in Dallas, I called Clinton’s local headquarters and was told I’d find our mayor at an event in Fort Worth. Driving west in my rental car, I had time to think about all the things I wanted to catch up on with Villaraigosa.

If we allow ever-denser development when there’s no money for transit, isn’t the gridlocked city doomed?

What’s the point of controlling the school board if you don’t order it to get rid of a superintendent who rates a C-minus on his better days?

And then there’s the matter of Clinton, who hasn’t exactly been on a winning streak lately. Does he think Latinos will support an African American nominee if she goes down in flames?

All good stuff to talk about. But I get the sense the mayor has held a grudge since my columns last summer about his unspectacular record as mayor. Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested that his secret romance with a TV personality was distracting him from his duties. But out here on the campaign trail, 1,200 miles from home, I thought we might get a chance to bury the hatchet and have a good chat.

Unfortunately, the mayor had already come and gone when I got to Fort Worth. A Clinton volunteer said if I hurried I might be able to catch him at Clinton’s Dallas office, where he was scheduled to meet with precinct captains. I hit the gas and headed east to a little bungalow off the highway near downtown Dallas.

To be honest, I was a little surprised Villaraigosa didn’t call off this latest trip. I know Clinton has relied on him to help turn out the critical Latino vote, but that horrific shooting at a South-Central bus stop near a school last week -- of the eight victims, five were children -- happened just two days before the mayor left town Friday.

The bus shootings followed a recent string of mayhem, including the Feb. 7 killing of SWAT Officer Randal Simmons and the Avenues gang shootout in Glassell Park.

Don’t I recall the mayor saying that fixing the city’s disjointed and ineffective handling of gangs would be a priority for him?

The house was full at Clinton headquarters, where roughly 150 precinct captains and others were getting caucus instructions. When that was done, a couple of local politicos made speeches about the “very special friends” they were about to introduce, meaning Anaheim Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and our very own traveling mayor.

Earlier, I’d had thoughts about jumping out from behind a bush to surprise Villaraigosa, but there were no plants in the room. I stood off to one side, listening to Sanchez talk about the cowboy boots she was sporting, and then she introduced Villaraigosa to nice applause.

I had wondered whether, when I finally got together with Villaraigosa, he would argue that he hasn’t really been out of Los Angeles all that much. But I soon realized I had nothing to worry about. The mayor told the crowd he’d left Los Angeles to go to “Iowa four times, New Hampshire for five days.” And people have wondered, he added, “why I went to Nevada as many times as I did.”

And the answer?

“This is the most important election of my lifetime,” he said, and whether the issue is health insurance for children or getting out of Iraq, Hillary is the answer. “This is where the rubber hits the road, and you all are the rubber.”

Maybe it’s a line better reserved for a rally at a Goodyear plant.

As he left the room, I leaned in to the mayor and said:

“What’s a poor Angeleno have to do to get an interview with you?”

The mayor was a little surprised, I’d say, but gracious enough. I told him I’d come a long way and wondered if we might get together later in the day.

He and press secretary Matt Szabo said they had a few more events, but they took my number, saying they might be able to meet Sunday night. If it didn’t work out, I said, I’d catch up with them Monday. Villaraigosa said he might head to Houston or San Antonio if he didn’t decide to go back home, and I agreed to go wherever I had to.

Szabo said he was taking vacation days to be in Texas with his boss. That’s fine, but what about the two LAPD officers who generally travel everywhere with Villaraigosa, whether he goes to Dodger Stadium or Texas?

They’re usually on the city dime, according to the LAPD, with taxpayers covering flights, hotels and food.

Here’s a question:

Has there been a threat against Villaraigosa by someone in Texas so that he needs two cops shadowing him every minute of the day?

As for the mayor’s time in the Lone Star State, his staff says he is not there as part of his official duties. But as an elected official who has no prescribed vacation time, he is authorized under the City Charter to spend his time as he sees fit while earning city pay. Whether that is in the city’s interest, or his own, is of course subject to debate.

Before the mayor went off to his next event -- a private affair -- I told Szabo I’d call him in a couple of hours if I didn’t hear from him. Three hours later, about 7:30 p.m., I called and was told my shot at an interview wasn’t looking too good. The mayor was still tied up, and exhausted, and he’d decided to catch the first plane back to Los Angeles on Monday morning.

I told Szabo I’d hang around downtown and take my chances.

While circling downtown Dallas, I had my eyes open for the red Ford Expedition I’d seen the mayor in earlier, which, if I’m not mistaken, is even bigger than transit advisor Jaime de la Vega’s Hummer. As luck would have it, I came upon the beast, parked next to a “No Parking Any time” sign outside a swanky nightspot called Scene. Through the window of the bar I could see a crowd.

“Is there a party in there?” I asked the valet.

“Yes there is,” he said. I began to back up so I could park behind the mayor’s SUV, but the valet told me there was no parking allowed.

I guess you need connections.

A half-hour later I saw the mayor emerge from Scene and get into the SUV. I figured he was heading back to his hotel, and decided to follow him in case he was ready for our interview when he got back.

The SUV took a strange route. It circled the downtown area for a while, as if the driver were lost, and then began heading out of town. I did my honest best to stay with him, but I lost the mayor about 10 or 15 minutes later in a residential area.

An hour after that, Szabo called to say the mayor was having dinner with friends and couldn’t do the interview. Maybe he’ll have some free time back in Los Angeles, he said.

I looked for the mayor at the airport Monday morning, hoping to get on his plane, but I think he beat me out of town. If he was looking out the window during takeoff, expecting to see me running after him on the tarmac, he was disappointed. I’m really not that desperate.

Call me when you’re ready, Mr. Mayor. I’ll go just about anywhere.

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steve.lopez@latimes.com