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First Los Angeles Mayoral Debate - Blogged Live *****
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7650 Reads
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Hahn, fighting for his job |
UPDATES below with blog and newspaper reax, and schedule for upcoming debates:
With only 30 seconds to respond, an hour to play and four other people to argue with, each candidate in Thursday's debate fell back into what he knew best - crafting sharp little soundbites. They responded by speaking extremely fast.
Fortunately, we'll have two more 90-minute debates with - one can only hope - time for longer answers and more room for the five men who would be mayor to shine or stumble.
What follows is the best transcript I could put together from a laptop on my sofa. Evelyn Wood's rolling in her grave, and I don't think the city's pool of court reporters should fear for their jobs, but I did my best ...
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Note: LA36 has a streaming video of the entire debate. You can follow along at home and verify that while I hit most of the points that were made, this is not strictly verbatim:
--------------- (earlier) ------------------
Here we go. Liveblogging the event just because I can. Hope you find it useful.
I'll attempt to keep up with the five debaters - Sen. Richard Alarcon, Mayor James Hahn, former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, Councilman Bernard Parks and Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa.
My speed-typing skills ain't what they used to be, but I'll try note everything that's said, and clean up the typos later ...
(NBC 4's Colleen Williams, as moderator, asks the candidates to give opening statements. Their speaking order was determined by drawing straws.)
Villaraigosa. I love this city, it's given my family and I more than we ever could have hoped for. I believe in Los Angeles and its future, but under Mayor Hahn, it's a city paralyzed by scandal. We are a city adrift, and it's time for a change. Yesterday I released a plan to put more than 1,600 officers on the streets - just one of the many plans I expect to enact in the coming months.
Hahn: Working with police chief William Bratton, Violent crimes, homicides are down across city. We're also working to make this a better city by making it safer because that's doing wonders to revitalize the city. Let's ask the voters to put more cops on the street now. I know we're gonna have our differences tonight, but we oughta stand together for more officers.
Parks: I want to return the city back to you Mayor Hahn and too many others have turned this city over to special interests with pay to play. I also would like to ask you to give your vote to me because I'll make sure your voices are heard.
Hertzberg: I'm gonna skip the platitiudes and cut right to the chase. I want to break up the L.A. Unified School District. We'll create smaller, neighborhood schools where the parents, the principals and teachers are in charge, not the downtown bureaucrats. The safest cities in America have one thing in common - excellent public schools. L.A is failing. Good teachers are stifled. We have a 50% dropout rate. I will break up the LAUSD and no downtown bureaucrat's going to stand in my way.
Alarcon: To the city of Los Angeles, I am honored to siit here with the four people to my left. They're honorable people in many ways, however I agree there's a lack of trust in city government. I'm sponsoring a ballot measure to get rid of the scandal from City Hall. This ballot measure will stop contributions from contractors to elected officials so it will not interfere with their will to work with the people of Los Angeles.
First question from Ron Kaye of the Daily News: (In light of the defeat of Measure A and the City Council's rejection of Hahn's proposal to put a sales-tax-for-cops measure on the May ballot):
Where do we get money for public safety?
Villariagosa: Greuel has a $30M proposal to get money from state, I think we get savings by going back to people from L.A. not with Measure A, but with a version that has accountability, a 7-year sunset clause, tried and true antigang programs, a version that has 5% for paramedics and one with civilian oversight.
Parks: I'm the only candidate who's actrually dealt with homeland security, I don't have to ask someone else. We have significantly more money in homealnd security than ever in our history. We have to bring everyday people into how they can protect themselves. The key to our safety is within this room and every room in the city of Los angeles. We've figured out how to deal with (disasters), we can do the sam thing with homeland security.
Hertzberg: Only 6% of the containers coming into the Port of Los Angeles are inspected, yet we have over $100M in a city account for homeland security. This is huge, gaping failure of leadership. My first day as mayor, I'd appoint a deputy mayor to work with the Port Authority and the LA DWP and be proactive to protect our water and (infrastructure).
Hahn: As mayor, I was chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Task Force on airport security. I led the fight to bring major dollars to urban areas so that cities like NY, Chicago and LA get their fair share. We haven't gotten the support from the other elected officials here in California. We think Cogress can divvy that (federal money) up better to the places that need it. We think it *all* ought to be based on need and security.
Alaron: The LAPD has been bearing the burden of homeland security for too long without the support of the Department of Water and Power and the Port Authority. They should give $75M each to esablish a homealnd security bureau within the LAPD - to hire over 1,000 patrol officers in city of LA (to help focus on homeland security).
Question from Ron Kaye: There are currently two grand jury investigations into pay to play practices, Fleishman-Hilliard is accused of charging over $2.2 million. If you're reelected what will you do to restore trust in City Hall?
Hahn: There are measures already in place prohibiting contractors from influencing those in public office. People who've known me, they know who Jim Hahn is, I've always been about honesty and integrity and I defy anyone to say anything different.
Villaraigosa: LA is paralyzed by scandal - that starts at the top and ends at the top. I propose to establish a waste and fraud unit in city controller's office.
Parks: We have to realize that the environment of corruption has ben created by this administration and this mayor. Hiring people without giving them clear guidance has added to it. Not to take immediate action has caused it to spread. (It's not enough to file a lawsuit) when the mayor and his staff created the reason for the lawsuit - the overbilling. Fleishman Hilliard should give us that money back immediately, we shouldn't have to sue for it.
Hertzberg: One thing I won't do as mayor, I won't hire my fundraiser as the mayor did to run the three proprietary departments for the city. I'll prepare an independent review process to make sure there's no connection between campaign contributions and city contracts. And work with city controller (to see that those connections are not allowed).
Alarocn: I'm prepared to introduce a ballot measure to eliminate connections between contractors and people in public office. We will not change City Hall if we don't change the rules. We will, I hope push forward with a strong ballot initiative to determine how ethics are at City Hall.
Jose Ronstadt - KWHY-TV anchor: - Are you confident that Hahn and Bratton are leading LAPD in the right direction? If elected, would you fire the chief?
Parks: I don't believe the chief can operate effectively under this administration. It's more politicized now than ever before. This administration has not done that. I would find that it's difficult for us as a city to take into account so many things that are said (by the administration) as they relate to deployment, crime stats and response times. These create a (reactive atmosphere) - The Police Department has become an instrument of the mayor's office, which is not how it should be.
Alarcon - We dont' have the resources to do the job. I agree with Councilman Parks - with 1,000 additional officers we can do a much better job.
Live, from the NBC studios |
Hahn - I think Chief Bratton is the finest police professional in America and has done a good job turning this department around. I had to make a hard decision to remove Chief Parks. With 800 fewer officers (lost to attrition) I had to make a choice. Crime is down, violent crime is down l8%.
Hertzberg: Yes. I would keep (Bratton). I've talked to the rank and file. I asked them what they think about him. They seem to think he's doing a good job, he just doesn't have the right resources.
Villaraigosa; Mayor Hahn said that crime is down - actually gang-related homicide is up by 20%. I had to stand next to a grieving father on the street whose son was shot by gang members. I had to stand next to a grieving mother whose son had just died in the emergency room. We need to do something about gang violence, and leadership starts at the top.
Kaye: Mr. Hertzberg you used your whole opening statement to talk about breaking up LAUSD, yet when you were in the Assembly, you opposed it. How do you (reconcile these two positions)?
Hertzberg: I lived in Sacramento, I was in the belly of the beast, I was dealing with the Department of Education and I thought there was a chance to make it work. Every year, another group of kids is lost. I look at the crime problem, I look at the problem of trying to sell this city to CEOs, and I think I can't do this job unless I fix the schools. We bought almost $500M worth of new textboooks, I continued to work on preschool system ... But you live and you learn. This is our future, and I"m not walking away from it.
Hahn: Bob, you said you had the chance to do something about it when you were in state government. What I try to do is say how I can help the schools? I'm the proud parent of 2 kids in public schools - that's whey we push for better after-school programs and try to help build more schools.
Alarcon: My first job out of college was a teacher. I established the Youung Senators program. We have to get everyone engaged in the process of education .The sad fact is that more than 50% of our students do not graduate from high school. I introduced a bill to get $200M to train teachers. If I'm elected mayor, I'll work hard to improve L.A. Unified School District.
Villaraigosa - I have great respect for my friend Bob Hertzberg, but I don't agree we should break up the district. I believe we need to compensate teachers better for their work, give them the training they need, engage parents in improving the schools. As mayor, I'll make education our nubmer 1 priority.
Parks: I do not agree with Mr. Hertzberg. With a year-round reduction of different programs, we're seeing improvements, but I believe we need direction from (a representative in) the mayor's office that will be a high-level monitor on education.
Ronstadt: How would you empower people if elected?
Alarcon: Los Angeles is having a crisis in that we do not have the skill levels to succeed. As mayor, my top strategic agenda for building the eocnomy will be to increase the skill levels for our children. We should provide tax incentives to businesses that pay high wages - not just for the movie industry, but the construction industry, high tech industry. We need to keep good jobs in Los Angeles.
Hertzberg: You can't tell me when yhalf of our kids are failing out of school that that's acceptable. Jim Hahn said he's going to put this LA's Best program - there are 43 such programs. I would end the gross receipts tax so we have the money to pay for these things.
Parks: I think we need to jmake the city more acceptable for people to move in as opposed to inundating certain partts of our city with affordable housing. I'm working to bring professional football back to Los Angeles because it's a multibillion-dollar source of revenue.
Hahn: The best way to end poverty is to make our city safer. In New York City when he was police chief, Bill Bratton solved the crime problem and their economy took off. We know that education is the way to get out of poverty, that's why we encourage thousands of volunteers to help with our Free Cash for College program.
Villaraigosa: I want to commend Richard Alarcon for addressing this important issue. LA is ground zero for poverty in America, it's the place with the highest homelessness rate, the highest uninsured rate. We have to focus on education, focus on an economy with 21st century jobs, focus on the literacy skills people need to make the most of their education.
Q: How would you attract new businesses?
Hahn: We're eliminating taxes for small businesses. We're trying to make neighborhoods places that people want to invest in, by making them safer. We brought crime down in Rampart District, as a result, business is (improving).
Alarcon: As a city council member, i promised to rebuild the General Motors plant - 4,000 new jobs. We expanded the Enterprise Zone, expanded the Empowerment zone. As mayor I'll do more of what I already did.
Hertzeberg; As Mayor, I'll eliminate the gross receipts tax as we know it. It's hard to sell Los Angeles when people pay significantly more to do business here. I'll bring back Mayor Hahn's business expansion teams (that were done away with a few years ago.)
Villaraigosa: A great city sis a city where we have a strong, 21st century economy. We need to focus on biomed and biotech. We need to focus on USC, UCLA and the Cal State system as the legs of that triangle to encourage development of biomed and biotech here. We need to focus on businesses that distribute high quailty goods.
Parks: We as a city have to eliminate many of the anti-business issues and ordinances, the most recent dealing with anti-retail, the restrictionos in dealing with apartment ownership. Long length of time it takes to get permits. We need to clean up our system and get out of the way of developers and private enterprise.
Ronstadt: Councilman Villaraigosa, you used the word empowerment a lot in your speeches - What is your plan to make affordable housing a reality in LA and where should projects be developed?
Villaraigosa - We must fully fund the Housing Trust Fund. We must focus transportation decisions, economic decisions and , housing decisions together. We should focus on Downtwn, a great place where we can adapt old buildings and plan for the kind of density we'll see in the future.
Parks: I think we need to concentratle on ALL housing. We need to have appropriate affordable housing, but we need to make sure every human being has the opportunity to live at every income in this city.
Hertzberg: Laura Chick just told us that the city has thousands of parcels of land that can go to nonprofit housing develpers and the state university system to allow people to have affordable housing. South LA is a great opportunity to create affordable housing.
Hahn: I'm proud we were able to fully fund the $100M Housing Trust Fund. This year over 12,000 units of housing being built (up over 1,000 when I took office) 30% of those are affordable. We need to build more housing wthout destroying the character of our great single-family neighborhoods.
Alarocn - I negotiated with the governor a $500M Cal Home program which provides home ownership opportunity to people who do not have it. I believe that we can do as much as I've done in the past and more.
Kaye: Traffic is probably the number one quality of life isuse for most people in Los Angeels, you've accused the mayor of not having a plan - what's your plan?
Parks; We have to make sure things are consolidated. - the CRA, building department, street services, planning and DOT, we need to bring them under one umbrella, and take an active role in meetings in SCAG and the MTA. The mayor has missed 30 meetings, almost 500 votes and been recused numerous times because of conflicts of interest.
Hahn: At MTA, I pushed expansion of the Rapid bus lines, we're putting two new lines a month now. I urge the MTA to stop fighting the court decreee and put more buses on the streets. I've worked to make our streets better. Fixing 25 intersections a year makes our streets better every day.
Alarcon: I belive that we have squandered an opportunity, by spending $11 billion to reubild LAX without increasing capacity, and not addressing congestion of the 405 is a problem. If I'm elected, I'll push for an authority ... to build a new airport north of Los Angeles.
Hertzberg: Traffic is killing the city. My very first day in office, I'll sign an executive order stopping construction during the rush hour, and to get trucks off the roads in the morning and the evening.
Villaraigosa: The question we have to ask ourselves is, has traffic gotten worse or better in the past 4 years of this administration? It's goten worse because this adminsitration has been mired in scandal. We need to focus on reversible traffic lanes, expanded bus lanes, we need to connect the Red Line down the bouleverad to the ocean, we need to connect the Convention Center to the Airport.
Ronstadt: Mr Hertzberg, youv'e stated you'll take down the For Sale sign at City Hall: Who are these powerful few who have access to the City Council, and how do you pretend to bring this For Sale sign down in Cty Hall?
Hertzberg: They're the people who're winning the contracts, and we know who they are because we know that the people who supported Mr Villaraigosa last time are the ones that aren't winning the contgracts. We need to craft a vision that changes how this environment works.
Hahn: You know, Bob, I'm not gonna take lectures from you on this. When you were in Sacramento, you raised millions and millions of dollars for yourself and Mr. Villaraigosa ... Get your facts straight. I'm not gonna take lectures from you.
Villaraigosa: There you go again, Jim Hahn, making excuses. You put a $24-million contract for public relations in place with the DWP, that's a monopoly in Los Angeles. We don't need public-relations contracts, we need more cops. Those $24 million would have given us 240 more cops.
Parks: They're in Los Angeles because corruption has stemmed form this office. The Los Angeles Business Journal reported earlier this year that 77 contractors received their contract just before or just after they made a contribution.
Alarcon: To Los Angeles: Do you believe that somebody who contributes tens of thousands of dollars to a campaign doesn't have something to gain? It sounds like the people here are leaning toward supporting my ballot measure.
Kaye: (There's been criticism of Hahn for ) the lack of a serious and meaningful growth program: Developers can get influence project by project. What's your plan to limit growth and increase jobs?
Alarcon: The City of Los Angeles has great opportunity in its Neighborhood Councils. I believe that Neighborhood Councils should have planning authority. They have the best eyes and ears to say what should be built in their neighobrhoods. If we're going to maintain democracy, we have to give the power to people (in the districts) and not acquiesce to the contractors and developers who use all those variances and whatever campaign contributions they can to influence City Hall.
Villaraigos: We need to limit growth to responsible growth, to start making our housing decisions with our transportation decisions and economic decisions, along the transportation corridors. We need to do that with the voices of the neighorhoods involved.
Parks: We have a Planning Department that creates zoning for keeping things out of communities rather than zoning for planning what should go into communities. Until we plan for the (infrastructure), this city will contiue to bog down in traffic and other issues.
Hertzbertg: When I"m mayor, I'll outline a vision and a plan for the city to coordinate all the departments. Right now you have a chief of staff who sits in these meetings ... and the people who are supposed to be running things are very removed from the process. I'll promote telecommuting and empower neighborhoods.
Hahn: The city contiues to attract people, and that creates growing pains. We've tried to ecourage smart development. A successful example is downtown. Density belongs in places like that, but not in our single-family neighborhoods. We also need to make sure we leave enough industrial land to keep new businesses coming in and our economy growing.
One more question, yes or no:
Will you work to bring an NFL team to LA
(All five men say yes, with Villaraigosa adding, "but not at public expense" and the others agreeing)
(Closing remarks, order of speakers chosen by drawing straws beforehand)
Villaraigosa: "By now , it's clear, that we need new leadership in Los Angels. Under Mayor Hahn, our city has been paralyzed by scandal. As speaker of the Assembly, I ... (lists accomplishments), I provided health insurance for 700,000 children. As a councilmember I've established 70 neighborhood watch commitees. We've set up neighborhood beautification programs, we're painting over graffiti, planting trees ... I'm a doer. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and tackle the tough issues; Fitghhting crime, improving our schools, and getting traffic moving again.
Parks; I want to thank the League of Women Voters and all of the participants. II'm not career politician, I don't wantt to be one. Thats why I want to turn city back to the citizens. We can clean up City Hall corruption. We can get better public safety by eliminating the 3-day work week (for LAPD officers). The special interests have had their day, Now it's time for people to have their say. (He extends a personal note of thanks to his family members).
Hahn: As mayor I've worked to make this city safer, and the results are clear. I don't think we want to go back to day when officers were fleeing the Los Angeles Police Department and we weren't tough on crime. Making LA a safer city is a lot of hard work. Crime is down, homicides are down 20%. We can add more police officers now. I'm asking evyerone to join me by adding more police officers now. We can vote on that in May, and give Chief bratton the trooops he needs. I believe in poblic service.
Hertzberg: Mayor Hahn, I'm going to vote no on your measure in May. We have a $5.4-billion budget in this city. To give the resrouces to Chief Bratton we'd only have to cut our budget by 2%. I don't think raising taxes is the solution. My job is to set forth a vision for Los Angeles and a strategy to get us there. Neighobrhoood empowerment, making cuts to benefit tje police. I will roll up my sleeves and give this job everything I've got. But I can't do it on my own, everyone's got to pitch in, we've got to recycle more and carpool more. Togethre we can make this city somewhere to be proud of.
Alarocn - I promised to close the Sunshine Valley (?) landfill, we closed that landfill. I promised to reopen the General Motors plant and bring 4,000 jobs back to the San Fernando Valley and we did. I created the speed-hump program when the DOT didn't want it, because I will fight for you. It's time we have people who'll fight for peole in Los Angeles ...I'm the one who's standing up agaisnt the Department of Water and Power because they raised the rates with the City Council and the mayor's approval, we're suing because we want that rate to go back down. Let's change the rules to root out the perception or the reality of pay-to-play schemes in City Hall. Let's give City Hall back to the people of Los Angeles.
UPDATES:
Let the spin begin. As might be expected, the Hertzberg web machine was hard at work, with staffer Andre Pineda doing blow-by-blow commentary and offering five reasons why his guy "won."
Not sure whether anyone can be declared a winner, but Hahn definitely came off the loser in the debate, as four men took every opportunity to pummel his thin record, bad decisions and costly dealings regarding the Fleishman-Hilliard PR contract on behalf of the LADWP.
An NBC insta-poll shows Villaraigosa slightly edging Hahn with Hertzberg a near-third (29%, 27% and 20%, respectively) on answers to the question, "If the election was held today, who would get your vote for Mayor of Los Angeles?" "None of the Above" is pulling 12% as of this writing - better than Parks' 9% and Alarcon's tragic 2%.
Of course, the poll's not spam-proof, so it's likely the stats are polluted by fevered mouse activity within the top three camps.
Martini Republic's Joseph Mailander praises Parks for pointing out that the Planning Department sucks, rails against all five candidates for neglecting to offer solutions calling upon L.A.'s considerable cultural resources, and ultimately awards the debate to Hertzberg.
The redesigned Mayor Sam's Sister City agreed, ranking the debate performances worst to best: Parks, Hahn, an Alarcon/Villaraigosa tie, and Hertzberg.
Schadelmann.com postmortems the debate, saying that while it's hard to say who needled Hahn the most effectively, "everyone had some clever way to say "Mayor Hahn Sucks!" Greg's generally down on the whole debate process so far: Overall though, with so little time to get much information out there, we were left with the usual cadence these things produce. In fact, using some buzzwords, a few statistics and taking note of the rhythm these guys speak, you could make up your own 1 minute glib responses. Let's say someone asked you a question like "What will you do about traffic?" you could say:
"I am committed to fixing our traffic mess witha 5-point plan that gets communities involved in the efforts to find ways to get the stakeholders together to move Los Angeles forward, not backward, in this time of crisis. And I really think Mayor Hahn is a stinker." Lonewacko weighs in, once again raising Villaraigosa's (ancient) MeCHa connections.
Kevin Roderick was backstage at the Museum of Tolerance debate hall and reports that Jim Hahn "lost his cool briefly while denying there is any ethics cloud darkening his term." He echoes the growing consensus that ethics scandals have turned the race into something of a brawl with Hahn at the center of it, fighting for his job.
Noti Los Angeles observes en Espanol that there was ningun ganador claro en el debate, pero un perdedor. Jaime E. Olivares delivers a long, thoughtful review of some of the more heated arguments, particularly on the pay-to-play investigations at City Hall and Hertzberg's proposal to break up LAUSD.
LAist handicaps the race in light of the first debate, joining the L.A. blogosphere's general impression that Hahn suffered a pretty thorough thrashing, and predicting that either Hertzberg or Villaraigosa - or both - could land in runoff slots on the ballot after the primary.
Here's how this morning's papers saw things:
Los Angeles Times - Debate Puts Hahn on Hot Seat
Los Angeles Daily News - Foes Hammer Hahn
Daily Breeze - Rivals Gang Up on Mayor, Hammer at Corruption Theme
And here's the schedule for the upcoming debates, which should give Los Angeles voters ample opportunity to decide which of these men should be given the keys to City Hall:
Dec. 21: The Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters assembles a panel of activists at LACMA's Bing Auditorium to grill candidates on environmental issues.
Broadcast: LA36, KCET and KPFK, 6 p.m.
Reservations: mayorevent@lalcv.org or call (310) 441-7663.
Feb. 7: The Alliance of Neighborhood Councils convenes NC members at CBS Television City in the Fairfax district to question the candidates. Moderators will ask follow-ups.
Broadcast: KCAL 9, 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Reservations: Neighborhood Council chairs are handling requests by NC members to join the audience.
Feb. 28: The Alliance hosts a second debate, same place, same audience/panel, different time and broadcast arrangements.
Broadcast: KCBS 2, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Reservations: Same.
If the race goes to a runoff, there will be at least one more debate.
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Thursday, December 02, 2004 - 07:02 PM
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