Double-edged challenge

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has decided to stick with Los Angeles, and we applaud that. The city has difficult days ahead, and Villaraigosa, who announced Monday that he wouldn’t run for governor, has yet to fulfill the promise that so many of his supporters see in him.

It won’t be easy, however, as some new poll numbers make clear. The poll, which appeared in The Times this week, shows some softness in Villaraigosa’s approval rating, as well as uneasiness with his handling of schools, the city budget and other issues -- and also general satisfaction with his efforts to improve public safety and environmental quality. What’s most troubling in the numbers, though, is not what they say about the mayor but what they suggest about this city’s electorate. Three out of four Angelenos polled rated the city’s budget difficulties as a serious problem, but majorities oppose slowing down police hiring, laying off city workers or raising fees for city services. Two-thirds oppose a tax hike to pay for fire services, and nearly 60% oppose increased taxes for other services.

No matter how Villaraigosa deals with the shortfall, the poll shows that his choices will be unpopular. Yet it does contain reasons for the mayor, and Los Angeles, to take heart. After decades of distrust and wariness, voters across ethnic boundaries registered strong support for the L.A. Police Department. Eight in 10 white voters approve of the LAPD’s work, as do three-quarters of blacks polled and two-thirds of Latinos -- a notably broad coalition for a department that has not always enjoyed such widespread approval. That’s appropriate because the LAPD in recent years has diversified and demonstrated renewed commitment to professionalism and civil liberties even as it has kept up its efforts against crime. Villaraigosa has done his part, finding money to expand the LAPD even in tough times and at some political risk. His support for increasing trash fees in order to pay for more officers riled some critics, who, like many of those polled last week, support police but not fees.

That hardly comes as a surprise -- it’s far too easy to want the benefits of a strong government without being eager to pay for them -- but the poll’s findings pose the fundamental challenge for our freshly recommitted mayor. The city elected him to a second term, which begins on July 1. Now that Villaraigosa has decided to see it through, he has four years either to refashion city government within new limits or make the argument that services are worth the cost.