Mayoral Hopefuls Scramble Before Final Confrontation

After several days of attack and counterattack in the campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, the six top candidates returned mostly to policy pronouncements and endorsements Tuesday, as they prepared for a debate tonight that will be their last chance to personally confront each other before election day.

Businessman Steve Soboroff announced the endorsement of former presidential candidate John McCain. Former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa promoted an urban planning agenda that would increase affordable housing construction and require more stringent environmental reviews of building projects. Councilman Joel Wachs said the state should immediately insist on lower levels of the potential carcinogen chromium 6 in drinking water. And U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra called for the preservation of empty lots as pocket parks and neighborhood gardens.

But the focus on issues, rather than the other candidates, promised to be short-lived. Two candidates who have been stagnant in the polls--Wachs and City Atty. James K. Hahn--planned to renew their attacks today. Usually rivals themselves, the two politicians said they would join together in an afternoon news conference to protest the fact that the two major political parties and special-interest groups have weighed heavily in the campaign, without being required to report their expenditures.

Meanwhile, a new round of special-interest groups waded into the campaign Tuesday. The National Rifle Assn. sent an “election alert” urging 20,000 members in the city to vote against the four Democrats running for mayor. And unions backing Hahn disclosed they are spending $225,000 on behalf of the candidate--making the announcement to pressure the county labor federation supporting Villaraigosa to divulge its spending too.

Hahn is supported by a coalition of several unions of carpenters, painters, laborers and pipe trades and government workers, including Service Employees International Union Local 347 and AFSCME District 36.

With only six days remaining before voters go to the polls Tuesday, recent polls show three candidates--Hahn, Soboroff and Villaraigosa--are in a close contest for the lead. Only two will make the June 5 runoff.

Soboroff announced the most significant endorsement of his race since Mayor Richard Riordan backed him for the job. The businessman’s advisors hope McCain’s support will win over independent and Republican voters still weighing their choice for mayor.

In a letter that went out to 50,000 voters, the GOP senator called the wealthy real estate broker “an independent-minded public servant.”

“I see in Steve someone who is dedicated to the same principles of integrity and reform I have always tried to live up to in my life in public service,” McCain wrote.

The announcement came just one day after McCain won passage of his campaign finance reform legislation in the Senate. McCain remained in Washington, D.C., and did not join the candidate at the morning news conference at Soboroff’s Ventura Boulevard headquarters.

But Dan Schnur, an informal advisor and McCain’s communications director during his presidential bid, said the senator would try to join Soboroff on the campaign trail for a day if he makes it into the runoff.

“An endorsement from John McCain, a national hero, is very, very important to me,” said Soboroff, the only Republican in the mayor’s race.

The late nod from the campaign finance reform champion could appear awkward in one sense because Soboroff was the first candidate to put his own money in the mayoral race and the first to break the city’s voluntary spending cap.

Hahn campaign spokesman Kam Kuwata called Soboroff a “walking billboard for hypocrisy,” because he has benefited from Republican Party funding. Kuwata compared that to the “soft” money that McCain has fought in national campaigns.

But Schnur said: “What’s much more important is to get their commitment to reform and their commitment to take on special interests.”

Focusing on the Issues

Villaraigosa said Tuesday that he planned on focusing on the issues in the final week of the mayor’s race, after a tense week in which he and Hahn exchanged several charges. He announced his “L.A. 21” agenda outside the Hollywood Red Line subway station, where government agencies have recently helped build affordable housing, a day-care center and commercial space.

Lining up behind the former state legislator were several urban theorists and transportation experts. Jennifer Wolch, co-director of USC’s Sustainable Cities program, called Villaraigosa the only candidate with a “visionary agenda for a livable Los Angeles.”

Villaraigosa said the agenda is topped by a massive expansion of the city’s new affordable housing trust fund from $5 million to $100 million. He said that affordable housing is the single most underfunded program in the city budget.

Villaraigosa said he would find that money by seeking more funding from the federal government, cutting city liability costs and levying a low-income housing “linkage” fee from developers, among other things.

The candidate said construction of housing near schools and transit centers would help make improvements “to our traffic, to our air quality, to the stability of our families and to the overall quality of life in our community.”

Wachs held a news conference of his own at City Hall, saying Los Angeles should not wait four years for the state to adopt a stricter standard for chromium 6.

He also called on the district attorney and the city attorney to force chromium 6 polluters to pay the cost of cleaning up the pollution.

But Mel Blevins, the Upper Los Angeles River Area water master, who identified much of that pollution, said that state water officials already are moving to deal with past chromium 6 contamination. “I believe that additional council motions at this time are not needed,” Blevins said.

Wachs said the cleanup would be worth the cost, including the estimated $47 million for replacement water if the city is forced to close some water wells.

Covering yet another issue and another corner of Los Angeles, Becerra appeared at the Wabash Senior Center in Boyle Heights to unveil a proposal to encourage “neighborhood building.”

Becerra said he would create a vacant-lot land trust to encourage the adoption of community gardens and neighborhood parks, and start a citywide intergenerational program, pairing senior centers and youth programs.

In addition, Becerra was endorsed by Juana Gutierrez, president of the Mothers of East Los Angeles-Santa Isabel, a community group that successfully fought the construction of a prison in East Los Angeles in the 1980s.

The candidates were gearing up for tonight’s debate at UCLA, to be televised on cable television. Many observers are expecting a contentious forum, particularly among Hahn, Villaraigosa and Soboroff, the front-runners.

Campaign finance could again be the topic. The coalition of unions backing Hahn prepared the way Tuesday for their candidate to attack, by announcing their own spending in the mayor’s race and saying the much larger county Federation of Labor, backing Villaraigosa, should do the same.

“We’ve been very clear and very open about what we’re doing,” said Julie Butcher, general manager of the service employees union Local 347. “We challenge the other campaigns to be clear and open.”

But experts disagreed on whether the arcana of campaign finance, or other topics, will win much of an audience.

“No one is going to be tuning in and watching this debate,” said campaign consultant Rick Taylor.

But John Shallman, consultant to candidate Kathleen Connell, predicted that the last forum could be important.

“It’s very important,” Shallman said. “It’s the last opportunity for voters to get an unfiltered, un-spun message. You are going to see the real candidates.”

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Times staff writers Andrew Blankstein, Patrick McGreevy and Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this story.