Competing L.A. ‘Mayor’ Parties Avoided in D.C.

Much of the elected leadership of Los Angeles went to Washington, D.C., last week, but the jockeying and lobbying they’d journeyed there to do halted after the terrorist attacks.

Some of the city’s D.C.-based staff had thought it would be nice to have a coming-out party for new Mayor Jim Hahn, and booked the Government Reform Committee room in the House Rayburn Building for Wednesday evening--only to find that the “mayor” of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors was holding his reception at exactly the same time, around the corner in the Gold Room.

The current board chair, Mike Antonovich, changed county law so that whoever holds the one-year rotating job of chairman can be called “mayor”--right now, it happens to be Antonovich. And it just wouldn’t do for two L.A. “mayors” to have dueling receptions. An L.A. city aide pointed out that Antonovich already had a D.C. reception a few months ago, and “We didn’t think he’d want two.”

Anyway, it was moot; the Capitol was locked down after Tuesday’s terrorist attacks.

L.A. County D.A. Steve Cooley and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky were already in D.C., and county Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Don Knabe and Sheriff Lee Baca were on their way to the airport to fly east Tuesday morning when the attack happened, and they all sped back to their posts.

Knabe was mayor of Cerritos in 1986 when an AeroMexico jet crashed into that city. “I remember what it was like to be on the scene, the death and destruction, and now you magnify it a thousand times,” he said. “I can’t even imagine. . . .”

Convention Canceled, Politicking Isn’t

The traditional eating-of-their-own known as the California Republican Convention was canceled because of the terrorist attacks. “Now is not the time for politics,” said Chairman Shawn Steel on the party Web site, “but a time for rebuilding and reflection.”

What had been on the menu was one big juicy morsel: a proposal by Gerald Parsky, who managed President Bush’s California campaign, to move control from the state party chairman to a hired chief operating officer, who’d hold the real power and answer to an expanded board of directors--including a new director representing the party’s major donors.

Parsky wrote a Q-and-A letter to party members with questions like “Is the sky falling?” (no, he said in sum). He said comfortingly that the proposals “are not about Conservative vs. Moderate, North vs. South, East Coast vs. West Coast or even Volunteers vs. Staff.”

In a letter to party officials, Parsky was more pointed, arguing that a larger board would provide “checks and balances against undue, unilateral actions that have had unfortunate, negative impacts upon the perception of the Party and on its [successes].”

“Undue, unilateral actions” is code for really conservative positions that the GOP right loves but the state’s voters generally don’t. Word is that Bush’s fund-raising folks have warned they’ll stiff the party coffers for the 2002 elections unless the reforms are adopted.

Nonetheless, Orange County GOP Chairman Tom Fuentes has urged other county chairpeople to reject Parsky’s attempt to “corporatize” the party with “special interests”--which is more code meaning CEOs and business types who want to nominate candidates who can win general elections, not just pass ideological purity tests within the party.

The GOP hasn’t rescheduled its convention, but when it does, listen for the thunder.

Councilman, You Can Drive My Car

A couple of years ago, as a 26-year-old Los Angeles City Council freshman, Alex Padilla was content to get around in a hand-me-down Jeep Cherokee once driven by Councilman Richard Alatorre, who can’t use it anyway because he’s no longer on the council, and he’s serving eight months of home detention for evading income taxes.

But now that Padilla is the council’s new president, things are different, and so are his wheels. Padilla had the city buy him a $33,300 Chevrolet Tahoe, an SUV so large that it barely fits into his reserved parking spot at City Hall. “He was frustrated that his old car kept breaking down,” said Alvin Blaine, who oversees the city’s fleet.

Each of the city’s 18 elected officials is entitled to a city car as a perk of the position, a vehicle that can be traded in every two years. Newly elected Councilmen Ed Reyes and Dennis Zine opted for $18,000 fleet cars, 2001 Chevy Impalas that perhaps remind Zine of his days in a black-and-white cop car. Green-minded Eric Garcetti chose a 3-year-old electric RAV4 from the city fleet, and Jack Weiss is using his own car.

Padilla’s whalemobile won’t break any price records, though. That distinction is still held by Councilman Nate Holden, who last year had the city buy him a super-swanky Lincoln Navigator 2000, with low fuel efficiency and a high ($45,223) price tag that made both fiscal watchdogs and environmentalists howl.

Says Padilla of his new ride, “When I drive over the potholes and unpaved roads in my district, it comes in handy.” Speak to Mayor Hahn about that, councilman; he spent Saturday mornings in his boyhood riding around his father’s supervisorial district, looking for ones that needed filling.

Remember the Governor’s Race?

You can put away your banners and buttons now. Tony Strickland (who? Oh yes, the second-term Moorpark Republican assemblyman) says he’s ended his draft gubernatorial campaign, which never really amounted to much more than a little breeze, and is now backing millionaire businessman Bill Simon Jr., who still has not said he’s definitely running.

And the Capitol Morning Report has introduced the world to Danney Ball (who?) and listed the 61-year-old Hemet songwriter’s top 10 reasons why the press will “never admit” he wants the GOP nomination for governor, among them: he’s got no money, he’s a conservative, he painted his name on his motor home so he must be crazy, he’s divorced so he must be loose, he’s a Christian so he must be some kind of religious weirdo, and No. 1, “We don’t want to.” Mr. Ball, you win.

Quick Hits

* Orange County’s burdens multiply. First Samson the hot-tubbing bear dies, and now it’s lost its vaunted place as the most Republican county in California; Placer County reports 49.77% of its voters are GOPsters, Sutter County is second with 49.67%, and Orange County comes in third, at 49.17%.

* The California Peace Action group suspended handing out its congressional-district-by-congress-Congressional-district report cards on members’ voting records on military issues (the latest, Los Angeles Democrat Xavier Becerra’s C average) because of the terrorist attacks. It has organized phone banks for blood donations and vigils, and issued a statement opposing potential military strikes and advocating arrest and trial of the terrorists.

* Census reports show the nation’s male population growing faster than its female population, and in cities of more than 100,000 the biggest gender gap was Salinas, with 113.7 men to every 100 women.

Word Perfect

“There is no question, the consequences are enormous,”

--Gov. Gray Davis, to a question about the economic fallout from last week’s terrorist attacks. How serious is it? The rainmaking governor even canceled his fund-raising for the week.

Columnist Patt Morrison’s e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Faye Fiore, Dan Morain, Patrick McGreevy, Jean O. Pasco and Nicholas Riccardi.