Hahn, Challenger Exchange Criticism

In the first debate of the 1997 municipal election season, Encino lawyer-developer Ted Stein on Wednesday lambasted Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn’s conviction rate and the city’s spiraling civil liability costs, while Hahn accused his challenger of being wholly unqualified for the job.

Stein, a former Los Angeles planning and airport commissioner, described the April 8 election as a choice between “proactive versus reactive.”

Hahn, a 12-year incumbent, painted the options as “experience” or “rhetoric.”

“Do you want a real estate developer as city attorney, or do you want an experienced, hands-on manager who’s been innovative in this job?” Hahn asked the sold-out crowd of 175 people. “You know who I am. You know what I stand for. I offer you . . . my record, my independence, my integrity.”

But Stein said the record Hahn offers is weak at best, and promised to run the $55-million-a-year, 370-lawyer office more like a private-sector law firm.

“We can’t continue with someone [who has] a demonstrated level of failure. . . . We need a city attorney with sound judgment,” he told the downtown crowd of lawyers, political consultants and business leaders. “It’s the management of the office that’s our problem. We need to run it as a professional office. We wouldn’t have any clients if the people in the city [government] had a choice.”

Stein kept hammering at two statistics: Costs for civil settlements and judgments have skyrocketed from $11 million when Hahn took office in 1985 to $60 million last year. Four of every 10 people the city tries in front of a jury for Class A misdemeanors--including assault, burglary, sexual battery and stalking--walk away free and, according to Stein, probably commit additional and more serious crimes.

Hahn responded with his own set of statistics. He noted that the decade-long average of a 60% success rate at criminal trials represented less than 1% of the criminal cases handled by the office--the overall conviction rate, including guilty pleas and other crimes, is 94%. As for civil liability, Hahn blamed much of the increase on angry jurors trying to raid the city’s deep pockets, and pointed out that $25 million was spent last year settling landslide cases connected to a 1994 flood.

And so it went, back and forth. Stein repeated “four of 10,” Hahn practically chanted “94%,” noting each time that the rate was higher than that of his two immediate predecessors.

Stein criticized Hahn’s endorsement of Police Chief Willie L. Williams for a second term, saying the city attorney should stay out of such political matters, and claimed credit as an airport commissioner for winning about $100 million from the airline industry, including $58 million that was transferred to the general fund and has helped pay for more police officers.

Hahn, meanwhile, spoke of his accomplishments fighting gangs, drugs and domestic violence.

“It’s easy to pick out a case here and there, but when you look at the overall [record], our attorneys do a good job,” he said. “Justice is more than percentages. . . . We care about the victims, not about the numbers.”

The audience seemed split.

Those seated at reserved tables, mostly high-powered business types connected to the sponsoring Central City Assn., were warm to Stein. Flanking the room, dozens of deputy city attorneys clapped wildly at everything their boss said.

“I’m proud of the lawyers in this office,” Hahn was careful to say during the debate. “I wonder how you could lead them when all you do is bash them.”

After nearly an hour of highlighting the office’s failures, Stein gave an almost apologetic nod to the city attorney-laden crowd.

“My problem isn’t with the men and women in the city attorney’s office,” he said. “It’s the lack of management and vision that they get from the top, the lack of training, the lack of tools.”

At one point, moderator Alex Sullivan of KNX news radio queried Stein about whether he thought Hahn had ever had any good ideas, prompting reluctant congratulations for the incumbent’s work on domestic violence and some sarcasm-tinged praise for Hahn’s comments earlier in the debate about passing an aggressive anti-panhandling law. Unfortunately, Stein said, the panhandling idea comes about a decade too late.

Sullivan turned to Hahn. “Does Ted Stein have any good ideas, Mr. Hahn, and would you implement them?”

“Not really,” Hahn said quickly.

Overshadowing the debate was the larger political landscape, and how each candidate is connected to others at City Hall. Hahn has already been endorsed by nine of the 15 City Council members, while Stein has served as a senior policy advisor to Mayor Richard Riordan.

“We need to have someone who’s not going to be forced to give a ruling based [on] friendships and loyalties,” Hahn said.

“The independence isn’t there anyway. Jim today is beholden to the City Council of Los Angeles,” Stein responded. “I’m an independent person. But the difference is I’m not going to be an obstructionist trying to stop everything the mayor is trying to do to make this a more livable city.”

As the luncheon ended, Stein reiterated his challenge to Hahn to meet weekly for debates in neighborhoods throughout the city. Hahn has previously said every week is a bit much, but said Thursday that he has already agreed to at least one more confrontation, on a cable television show.