Two Views of What Los Angeles Is and What It Needs

Incumbent Mayor Richard Riordan is a businessman, investor and lawyer.

Question: How would you define Los Angeles?

Answer: I think Los Angeles is like a giant mosaic with each stone representing a different ethnic community, a different sexual orientation or a different color, and I see it as a beautiful mosaic.

Q: Is it harmonious?

A: Considering that we are the most diverse city in the world, I’m proud of how harmonious Los Angeles is. That’s not to say that we don’t have our problems.

Q: Isn’t there a lot of hostility between various groups?

A: I think that on balance the various groups treat each other fairly. But economics plays a role. If you’re a person who is in a hopeless situation because you haven’t had a good education, you don’t have the tools to get and keep a quality job, this can result in a certain hostility toward those who do have access. So the cure is really keeping your eye on the ball, making certain every person has the right to get the tools to compete. First and foremost is education, and we have a public education system that has to be improved dramatically.

Q: But that’s a long-term issue that your office isn’t directly involved with. In the short run, are you concerned that things might get out of control again like they did in 1992?

A: No. I’m very confident that we’re not going to have major problems of the past unless we slip backward. For one thing, there was the absolute, complete failure of the LAPD to stop the violence at Florence and Normandie. But if we can continue improvement in safety and education and continue to clean up and empower neighborhoods, I don’t think you’ll have major problems like the past.

Q: Aren’t a lot of the same tensions still there?

A: The gap between the haves and the have-nots is growing. There is still the hopelessness of people who have not gotten a good education, do not have the tools to compete for quality jobs and of kids from dysfunctional families who got into gangs and drugs early. We’re not going to have magic pills to reform gangs, that’s unrealistic. We have to think long-term and work on education.

Q: So what does it mean to be mayor?

A: It means that I’m part of this mosaic. I had to step back and take a macro view of the needs of the city, and I determined right away that the needs of the various communities are almost identical. People want to live in safe neighborhoods in a city where government is friendly to homeowners and job-creating businesses and there’s no abusive panhandling, graffiti, illegal dumping or abandoned buildings.

Q: Sometimes it sounds as if you and Tom Hayden are talking about two different cities.

A: Maybe it’s the difference between a super-critic and an optimistic implementer or doer. Certainly, I recognize the gap between the haves and the have-nots. But he’s using it for divisive rhetoric rather than recognizing it as a fact for which we have to find solutions.

Q: Is there any possibility that you might be out of touch or that you might be sheltered from the kinds of things that Hayden’s talking about?

A: No. Absolutely not. My whole adult life has been spent dealing with this type of issue and I have spent thousands of hours in economically disadvantaged communities. I’ve worked to empower children and other people that live there. That’s just totally a bum rap. When I’m in communities, I feel a total respect from the people. I think they see in me somebody who holds everybody just as important as I am.

Q: Can you be mayor of Los Angeles without playing ethnic politics?

A: As a leader, you have to deal with situations as they are. I get pressured to make appointments or support people of different ethnic groups. But I have prided myself on picking the best people, and I do not lower my standards because of a person’s ethnic or other background. This city has a wealth of talent in every ethnic group.

Q: The appointment of chief of police is your most conspicuous, most sensitive appointment. And you’ve proposed Deputy Chief Bernard Parks as the interim police chief if Willie Williams leaves before his term is up. How important was it that Parks, like Williams, is African American?

A: Bernie Parks is an incredibly brilliant man. He’s high-energy, he’s tough and he has a big job facing him. You have a department with a long history--even before Chief Williams--of not putting power and accountability out in the field. And to succeed, you have to put power and accountability with the captains, the lieutenants, the sergeants and the officers out in the field. It would be disingenuous of me to say that I’m not conscious of somebody’s race. By the same token, I’m not going to pick somebody who I don’t think is going to be the best.

Q: Can the mayor of Los Angeles really do anything about growing divisions between the rich and the poor?

A: There’s a lot you can do, and it essentially comes down to having access to quality jobs.

Q: The jobs you’re talking about come from the private sector. Is there anything government can do directly?

A: Again, there’s no magic pill. Take the living-wage ordinance, which I vetoed. I’m for a living wage, but I don’t think government should dictate it, so that’s why I vetoed it. When government gets involved and tries to run an economy, it has been a disaster. Whenever you see Utopianism, chaos is not far behind. This has been proved true whenever it’s been tried. The bottom line on living wages is for people to have the talents to handle quality jobs. Then the jobs will come to them. Businesses will come here if you have a skilled labor force.

Q: As a personally wealthy person yourself, do you believe in trickle-down economics?

A: No. As an investor, I’ve been a catalyst for getting new products out in the market and creating quality jobs. As a result, I did very well; so did the employees of those companies. I do not believe in trickle-down at all. I believe in government and I think that everything has to come from the grass roots upward.

Q: What are you doing to advance that goal?

A: I have been out in the communities more than any other mayor has. I’m out talking to community centers, schools, senior citizens’ homes, police advisory boards constantly. I go on fire rollouts and police rollouts. And the one message I give people is that I can’t solve your problems. The City Council can’t solve them. You have to solve them. You have to take responsibility for your own community’s cleanliness, graffiti, abandoned buildings. What government can do is empower you and be your resource partner for making that happen.

Q: How close are we now to having government fail?

A: I think the curve is going straight up. There are more and more communities that have organized. From South L.A. to the Valley to West L.A. to East L.A. to Eagle Rock to San Pedro, communities have organized. They realize that this is the solution as far as getting empowered, as far as taking responsibility, as far as getting the government to be their resource.

Q: You really think that’s going on?

A: Oh, all throughout the city. It’s going on. It’s incredible what’s happening throughout the city. But if you’re one person calling up City Hall, you’ll have a nervous breakdown.

Q: I want to hear more about whether government has a role in helping to redirect economic forces.

A: Absolutely. If you empower communities, then they will need resources. You will become their partner, and they’ll make things happen. We’ve had initiative programs which have revitalized a number of retail neighborhoods in the economically disadvantaged parts of our city. We have business improvement districts, which are in effect businesses agreeing to assess themselves a small amount, and we’ve been a catalyst for making these happen throughout the city. Almost every day, I have a new thought as to how to get some new catalysts to accelerate this. We need to come up with new, creative ideas all the time.

Q: What about the claim that you’re running City Hall--and especially the MTA--on behalf of wealthy friends who get big rail construction contracts?

A: You know, that’s the kind of lie that gets thrown out there. First of all, lobbyists and others do not have access to my office, which is unique in politics, and I’m somebody who demands of the people that work for me that politics be kept out of giving out contracts and hiring people for the city. During this campaign. I haven’t taken a penny from anybody that’s involved in construction at the MTA.

Q: Has the issue been campaign contributions or the idea that the people with whom you’ve been associated in business are getting favorable treatment?

A: That’s absolutely false and Sen. Hayden knows it. The major contracts were all let before I was mayor, and if somebody I was close to is involved with MTA, I haven’t talked to them since I’ve been on the MTA board except passing them to say hello.

Q: If for any reason you were not able to serve a second term, what do you think your legacy would be?

A: To put it positively, when I leave as mayor, my legacy will be that I restored the confidence of Angelenos. That I got Los Angeles to think forward. That I made Los Angeles safer, friendlier to job-creating businesses and that I helped communities organize. And then I hope that they will remember me as somebody who truly loved Los Angeles and really cared about Los Angeles and about Angelenos.