Changes to City Council Are Greatest in Decades : City Hall: Four new faces will join two others elected in 1991. But panel appears to retain its progressive slant.

Driven by intense disillusionment with the political status quo, Los Angeles voters have made the most significant changes in the city’s elected leadership in recent history.

With four new members to be seated July 1, the once seemingly static Los Angeles City Council will have experienced an almost 50% turnover in just two years, the biggest movement in the city’s elected ranks since at least World War II.

But even though voters seemed to be reaching out for change with a remade council, the body collectively seems likely to maintain its largely progressive political cast--a result that could pose problems for Mayor-elect Richard Riordan and his attempts to put more government operations in private hands.

The election of former school board member Jackie Goldberg, the council’s first openly homosexual member, and the apparent victory of former mayoral aide Richard Alarcon, who is in line to become the council’s third Latino, are expected to solidify its generally liberal Democratic majority.

Goldberg said Riordan will have to tread lightly to get along with the new City Council.

“It depends on him,” she said. “If he sees himself as the CEO of a private corporation, we’re going to have a lot of trouble. But if he’s ready to be the responsible leader of a large and diverse city, then we’ll get along OK.”

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, the influential chairman of the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, warned that Riordan’s proposals to lease out Los Angeles International Airport to pay for more police and to hire a private firm to collect trash will not be received well by the council.

“Mr. Riordan is going to find out very quickly the limitations on what he has proposed,” Yaroslavsky said.

The council may even try to assert its opposition role more forcefully, two members suggested, by attempting to replace council President John Ferraro, a moderate Democrat and an ally of the Republican Riordan.

The council president wields significant influence by appointing colleagues to committees, where most of the nitty-gritty of governing occurs, and by maintaining some control on the order in which issues are addressed.

Although Ferraro clearly was buoyed by Riordan’s victory, the amiable 27-year council veteran saw all four of the council candidates he backed go down to defeat.

“John suffered a big loss last night,” said one colleague, who asked not to be identified. “And now, having Ferraro (as council president) and Riordan as mayor is more than some progressive Democrats can handle.”

Both this council member and a colleague said there have been discussions about trying to remove Ferraro in favor of a more liberal president when the new council members are sworn in.

But such talk is almost de rigueur after council elections. And some City Hall observers said the latest speculation may simply represent a bid by some council members to leverage plum committee appointments out of Ferraro or to receive other concessions.

Ferraro said he expects to maintain his post, in part because of his past efforts to treat other council members fairly, regardless of their ideology. “I’ve given them all a fair shot,” he said.

The makeup of the 15-member council remains in doubt because of the closeness of the 7th District race in the northeast San Fernando Valley. Alarcon, a former aide to outgoing Mayor Tom Bradley, holds a 164-vote edge over retired Fire Capt. Lyle Hall.

Hall said Wednesday that he hopes to make up that difference with a tabulation of an unknown number of absentee ballots to determine who will replace retiring Councilman Ernani Bernardi.

Regardless of that outcome, the remaking of the council will be substantial.

Goldberg will represent an urban district reaching from Hollywood to Glassell Park that has been the domain of Michael Woo, who ran for mayor rather than seek a third term. She immediately interpreted her narrow victory over Ferraro’s longtime aide, Tom LaBonge, as a validation for her call for a multiethnic coalition that opens access to City Hall.

Goldberg’s position as the council’s first openly homosexual member seems likely to assure her a high profile.

“This is a barrier we’ve been trying to break in Los Angeles for quite a while,” said Scott Hitt, a physician and prominent fund-raiser in the gay community. “There’s nothing like having one of your own at the table.”

And although gay issues did not play a significant role in her campaign, Goldberg says she will push for such items as domestic partnership legislation, which would extend city benefits to the partners of gay city workers and allow gay couples to register with the city as a form of recognition.

Laura Chick scored Tuesday’s most decisive victory--apparently due to widespread feeling among voters in the west Valley’s 3rd District that Councilwoman Joy Picus, after 16 years in office, had stayed too long.

Chick, Picus’ onetime aide, pledged to be a strong ally of Riordan. “I think it’s going to be very exciting to work with him,” she said.

But she also was cautious in discussing specific issues, saying she is not ready to endorse the idea of privatizing the airport and trash collection.

In perhaps the biggest surprise of the election, San Pedro paint store owner Rudy Svorinich scored a 53%-to-47% victory over three-term Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores.

Allegations that Flores had lost touch with her district apparently hit home--fueled largely by her failed attempts in recent years to move on to, first, the secretary of state’s office, and last year to the U.S. Congress.

Svorinich also asserted a general empathy with the mayor-elect but said he was not ready to take a position on specific issues. “We’re both businessmen and we’ll be coming at issues in some of the same ways,” he said.

If Alarcon maintains his lead over Hall, he could combine with Goldberg and six incumbents to form a working majority of eight liberal Democrats on the 15-member council. The incumbents are Yaroslavsky, Mike Hernandez, Ruth Galanter, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Rita Walters and Marvin Braude.

Political scientist Steven Erie, who is writing a history of Los Angeles politics, said he expects the council’s ideological bent to remain essentially the same. “How much different is Jackie Goldberg going to be from Mike Woo? Not a whole heck of a lot,” Erie said.

Several of the incumbent liberal Democrats already have expressed distaste for leasing LAX and placing trash collection in the hands of a private firm.

The lawmakers said they think a lease of the airport would do more to benefit a private firm than to create revenue for the cash-strapped city.

“If there is money to be made out at the airport, and there is, then the public should get 100% and not share it with some middleman,” Yaroslavsky said.

The council members object to contracting for refuse collection because of fears that hundreds of mostly minority city garbage haulers would lose their jobs. Walters, for instance, termed herself “unalterably opposed” to hiring a private company to collect trash. “The only reason you privatize is to pay lower wages and give poorer benefits,” she said. “And those are almost 100% minority workers.”

Riordan also may have to contend with a more generic problem--the increasing assertiveness of the council in thwarting mayoral actions. Some council members have grown accustomed to blocking Bradley’s proposals in recent years and might not want to change, observers said.

“The City Council has stepped into the vacuum,” one high-ranking city bureaucrat said. “The council is not going to give up its newfound power very readily.”

But Riordan’s allies predicted that his experience as a negotiator and businessman will allow him to break through impasses.

“He already has a core of supporters on the council--the senior hands like Ferraro,” said Erie, the political scientist.

Riordan began sowing the seeds for cooperation Wednesday, making a brief appearance in City Council chambers, shaking hands with each council member and pledging to work with them.

“I know I can’t run the city alone and you know you can’t run the city alone,” the mayor-elect told the lawmakers. “I know I have to share power and credit with each and every one of you.”

Although it may assert considerable power over the mayoral agenda, the council failed Tuesday at another attempt to expand its influence. Voters soundly rejected a ballot measure that would have given the council power to dismiss department heads without exhaustive disciplinary hearings.

A majority of lawmakers said the change would have given them leverage to force bureaucrats to streamline government. “Now our hands are tied, but we will be blamed if we don’t get results,” Galanter said.

Voters apparently accepted the counter-argument--that the council would use its increased power to assert undue influence over city operations. Similar measures have been rejected several times.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Bettina Boxall, Jack Cheevers, Greg Krikorian, Lisa Richardson, Ron Russell and John Schwada.

* COUNCIL’S NEW FACES: B2