Fabiani, Mayor’s Catalyst, Combines Youth and Brass : City Hall: He is credited with restoring Bradley’s popularity. But he has irritated some in government.

To some he appears arrogant: slicked-back hair, a cool gaze, a smile that sometimes becomes a smirk. On top of that, Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Mark D. Fabiani combines youth--he is 33--with brass.

The No. 2 man in Tom Bradley’s Administration is a Harvard Law School graduate who has forged a reputation at City Hall as an achiever and hard-nosed political infighter. Admirers regard him as a “Boy Wonder”--the “smartest person in the building,” according to one staff member. Detractors say he has alienated important department heads and members of the City Council, including Council President John Ferraro, who once ejected Fabiani from a meeting.

Yet in the year since he took control of Bradley’s staff, Fabiani has received much of the credit for restoring Bradley’s faltering popularity, which had hit an all-time low during the City Hall ethics scandal. As a catalyst of change, Fabiani has shaped a new, more progressive mayoral agenda while tempering Bradley’s pro-growth stance. He was Bradley’s adviser during the surprise appointment of several prominent environmentalists and advocates of low-income housing to important commission seats.

He also is given credit for restoring vigor to the mayor’s office. Fabiani’s aggressive politicking has resulted in additional low-income housing at several large development projects being planned, insiders say. The mayor’s deputy has drawn both plaudits and criticism for what some see as attempts to manipulate the media and to maneuver his own favorites onto important city commissions and into top administrative posts.

The critics include Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, who branded Fabiani “a slick-haired . . . young kid” of unproven merit after the mayor called for an audit of the Police Department. Ferraro became so enraged at Fabiani’s lobbying during a meeting earlier this year that Ferraro had him removed from the crowded chamber. Ferraro denies a rumor that he has banned Fabiani from his office, but adds: “Why would I want him in my office when he acts the way he does?”

When Fabiani replaced the volatile, media-bashing Mike Gage as the mayor’s top deputy and chief of staff last fall, Bradley was reeling under investigations into his personal finances and professional conduct. Political pundits said the mayor was too old at 71, too out of touch with public concerns over traffic, high-rise development, pollution and street crime. Bradley, they said, had become a political dinosaur, headed for extinction.

Although some of the investigations are continuing, a poll conducted during last fall’s gubernatorial campaign showed that Bradley had regained the level of popularity he enjoyed before the scandal. And Fabiani took a major role in revitalizing Bradley’s image through a series of personnel moves and legislative programs.

In a move that appeased both developers and homeowners’ groups, Fabiani orchestrated the removal of embattled Planning Director Kenneth Topping when it looked as if Bradley might resist the political pressures for change.

The ouster occurred after Fabiani shrewdly called upon high-powered lobbyists with connections to Bradley to join in putting pressure on the mayor, according to participants in the drama.

Today, Fabiani is regarded as a major player in a similar effort to drive out John Tuite, powerful director of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency. Tuite was once Bradley’s hand-picked choice to head the agency but has been criticized for emphasizing downtown development at the expense of affordable housing and social programs. Tuite now is rumored to be stepping down soon.

The infighting over Tuite illustrates the level of suspicion that Fabiani’s critics harbor against him. Tuite had left town earlier this year to attend a daughter’s wedding when questions surfaced about alleged violations of bidding procedures and misuses of city funds controlled by Tuite. The mayor’s office asked the Police Department to look into the matter and The Times reported the ensuing investigation.

Ultimately, Tuite and the CRA were cleared of criminal wrongdoing, but some allies of Tuite still suspect that Fabiani stirred up police and media interest to put pressure on Tuite to step down.

“The impact on John was massive,” one CRA insider said, asking not to be named because he continues to do business with the mayor’s office. “Here he is in Chicago . . . and the implication comes out that something really serious has taken place. It turned out there was nothing to investigate--there was nothing there.”

Fabiani declined to be interviewed for this story and directed his staff not to cooperate by granting interviews. Several City Hall employees and politicians spoke on the condition that their names not be used, saying they did not want to jeopardize their working relationship with the mayor’s office.

As deputy mayor, Fabiani is paid $100,161 a year to command a staff of 127 employees, and he carefully relegates himself to the background in dealing with most city issues. He is keenly aware, associates say, that his job is to keep Bradley’s name and image in the limelight--and to step forward himself when it is necessary to take the heat for Bradley’s less-popular actions.

Around City Hall, Fabiani is viewed as the “spin doctor” who, by judiciously sharing or withholding information from the media, softens the harsh news stories that have plagued Bradley’s recent reign. On at least one occasion, he tried to stop a high-ranking colleague from releasing copies of Bradley’s daily itinerary--a public document--out of concern that The Times would print a negative story.

“Their first job has been to try to stop the free fall the mayor was in,” commented Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, assessing Fabiani’s importance to Bradley. “I think Mark Fabiani is more in touch with what’s going on with this town than some of the other people the mayor is inclined to listen to. On balance, the more the mayor listens to him the better off he is.”

Others, however, downplay Fabiani’s role, saying Bradley is led only where he chooses to be led on matters of policy and personnel. Former mayoral press aide Fred Mac Farlane called Fabiani a skillful problem-solver and agent of Bradley’s wishes but said Bradley, and no one else, is behind the renewed vigor of the mayor’s office.

“He’s the ultimate political surfer,” Mac Farlane said of the five-term mayor. “He’s been through the Banzai Pipeline of politics in Los Angeles and always comes out of that tube with all 10 toes on the board.”

Whatever the case, Fabiani has clearly plunged into the political waters with more assurance and activism than many expected of such a young appointee. Fabiani’s strengths, his colleagues say, are that he can quickly analyze complex situations and argue his positions with forceful logic. He is also regarded--at least in the mayoral suite--as much easier to work with than his predecessor Mike Gage, whose mercurial temperament produced a series of internal disputes, battles with the press and at one point even a scuffle with Anton Calleia, one of Bradley’s top advisers.

The low-key Fabiani is considered a demanding boss but one who can communicate with wry--and sometimes hilarious--humor.

However, his aggressive approach to dealing with city issues has alienated more than a few members of the City Council, who consider Fabiani to be uppity, politically naive and even untrustworthy.

Fabiani got off on the wrong foot with Council President Ferraro almost as soon as he got the job by failing to honor protocol with a courtesy call introducing himself.

Fabiani then further irritated Ferraro by stepping into the mayoral spotlight at times when Bradley was out of town--a tack he took this fall when announcing the agreement to keep the pro football Raiders in Los Angeles. Under the City Charter, it is the elected council president--not the mayor’s appointed chief of staff--who is second in command at City Hall and in charge whenever the mayor is away.

“Obviously, he’s very bright, but I don’t think he understands the nuances of political life,” said a piqued Ferraro, who was not consulted about the Raiders press conference.

Ferraro and other council members have objected to Fabiani’s assertive forays into some of the city’s 15 council districts, even though, in theory, the mayor’s authority extends to all projects in the city.

An unwritten rule of city politics is that council members run their own districts like fiefdoms, giving thumbs up or thumbs down to virtually any project that does not raise citywide concerns.

At Farmers Market in Ferraro’s district, Fabiani further offended the councilman by intervening to lobby against Ferraro’s compromise plan for commercial development at the site, council sources said.

Fabiani also ran head-on into Councilwoman Joy Picus during the legal battle over a proposed 21-acre development site at Warner Ridge in Woodland Hills. Picus sought and won--or so she thought--a City Council appropriation of $250,000 to resolve complex planning issues.

The mayor’s office unexpectedly vetoed the money, forcing Picus to seek a council override--which she also won. The veto, which Picus attributes to Fabiani, ended up accomplishing little except to raise the council’s hackles.

“Mark is a well-intentioned young man, but he lacks political sophistication,” Picus said later. “You just don’t take on council members about something that you know is terribly important to them” in their own districts.

In an age when Bradley can no longer count on support from a council majority on important issues, critics question whether the rift between Fabiani and the council will come back to haunt the mayor. As Ferraro put it: “He is not the mayor . . . (and) he’s not going to serve the mayor if he doesn’t get the support of the council.”

On the other hand, Fabiani’s supporters applaud his strong interest in big-ticket developments. Fabiani has insisted upon additional low-cost housing at two of the most massive projects now looming on the city horizon: Central City West, which will bring new office towers and about 4,000 low-cost apartments and condominiums to downtown Los Angeles, and Porter Ranch, a “second Century City” envisioned for the foothills above Chatsworth.

One high-ranking Bradley staff member, speaking on the condition that his name not be used, said Fabiani tends to anger people because “he is trying to do something. He is not intimidated by anybody, from downtown businessmen to developers to The Times. He’s not afraid of consequences. He just says to people (on his staff), ‘Go do it.’ ”

No one questions Fabiani’s raw administrative talent. The son of an Ontario police officer, Fabiani became a national intercollegiate debating champion at the University of Redlands and an editorial board member of the Harvard Law Review. He later was hired as a clerk for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. 9th District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles, where he became acquainted with the city’s political arena.

Reinhardt was then married to Maureen Kindel, a longtime Bradley commission appointee. Eventually, the mayor’s office created a position especially for Fabiani as Bradley’s legal counsel. Fabiani became the mayor’s point man on issues ranging from South African divestiture to non-discrimination against AIDS patients.

Tom Houston, Gage’s predecessor as chief of staff and the man who hired Fabiani, recalled a series of important clashes with the city attorney’s office. It was Fabiani, Houston said, whose legal work helped force the powerful Department of Water and Power to negotiate a settlement of the longstanding lawsuit over Mono Lake and the city’s water policies in the Owens Valley.

“As an attorney, Mark was the the quickest study, the quickest writer, the most effective writer at putting issue-papers together, that I’ve ever run into in my life,” said Houston, an attorney himself via Stanford University. “He’s an extraordinary talent in that regard.”

After Houston stepped down to join a private law firm, Fabiani continued working as the mayor’s legal counsel until Gage left at the height of the financial investigations of Bradley to take a job with a development company.

The vacant chief-of-staff job--a political hot seat at City Hall--was offered to a number of candidates who turned it down, sources said. Fabiani’s appointment surprised some observers who questioned his experience, but others applauded Bradley for choosing the staff member who most clearly demonstrated the talent for the job.

Fabiani, a devoted Lakers basketball and Raiders football fan, is single and enjoys an active social life, according to his friends. He bicycles in the Hollywood Hills where he lives and eagerly takes part in pick-up basketball games. At a City Hall celebration of the Lakers’ most recent world’s championship, Fabiani made a point of being photographed with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, according to former press aide Mac Farlane.

Despite varied interests and considerable personal charm when he wishes to use it, Fabiani has struggled like other top deputies before him to master the unusual dynamics of the mayor’s office--a place divided between top-level aides such as Calleia, William Elkins and Philip Depoian, who report directly to Bradley, and others who work under Fabiani.

The arrangement protects Bradley by assuring him several conduits of information, one former insider said, but it also leaves the chief of staff open to second-guessing and undercutting.

Former officemate Mac Farlane said Fabiani is “not a glad-hander, not a back-slapper,” just someone with enough confidence to accomplish his mission. Arrogance? “That’s a bad rap,” Mac Farlane says. “You have to look at the people who are saying that, and you’ll find they are people who don’t have Mark’s capabilities.”