L.A. Votes: Greuel, Garcetti navigate union waters, roast colleague

As the mayoral candidates crossed the two-month mark until the runoff election, Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti are struggling with a bit of a paradox -- the two long-time, pro-labor Democrats are jockeying over which of them is more likely to stand up to city-employee union demands.

Both candidates have labor backing, but the most influential and deep-pocketed unions have thrown their support behind Greuel. That has resulted in a political dynamic few expected -- Greuel has emerged as the de facto labor candidate while Garcetti has been painted as a union nemesis.

Greuel has been forced on the defense as some of her business backers grew uncomfortable with recent statements she made about city employee retirement benefits. On Thursday, Greuel responded to questions from the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, affirming  her support for making new cuts in pension costs and assuring them that she has no interest in challenging any of the reductions in benefits that have already been approved.

FULL COVERAGE: L.A.'s race for mayor

Garcetti and Greuel appeared together Thursday night for the first time since winning runoff spots in the March 5 primary. A swanky benefit for diabetes research at the Beverly Hilton was billed as a roast of Councilman Tom LaBonge, but most eyes were focused on the mayoral candidates. Greuel and Garcetti poked barbs at each other while they poked fun at themselves.

Meanwhile, fund-raising continues to take up large quantities of the candidates’ time as they try to replenish coffers drained by their testy primary.

Garcetti is on an East Coast fund-raising swing. Tonight, he is collecting checks at a reception at the New York City home of Hilary and Peter Hatch. Garcetti’s connection with the hosts is deep -- the councilman officiated at the couple’s 2005 wedding. Peter Hatch formerly worked for presidential candidate John Edwards and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. On Saturday, Garcetti heads to Miami to raise more money.

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While Greuel’s plans for the weekend haven't been disclosed, the candidate sent out a fund-raising plea to supporters Thursday that said, “Let’s make history – and then have a big group hug when we win on May 21.”

Meanwhile, in the city attorney’s race, incumbent Carmen Trutanich called on two companies to turn off more than 100 digital billboards, and opponent Mike Feuer accused him of seizing on the issue to play politics. Feuer has racked up many major endorsements in the race, but on Thursday, county Supervisor Gloria Molina bucked the trend by backing Trutanich.

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-- Seema Mehta

Comments, questions or tips on city elections? Tweet me at @LATSeema

Photo: Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel speaks to supporters at election night gatherings. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times; Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

At annual roast, Greuel and Garcetti trade barbs for laughs

Once a year, politicians, lobbyists and other City Hall power players get together for a fancy dinner at the Beverly Hilton to make fun of each other for a good cause. 

The honoree at this year's Los Angeles Political Roast, which raises money for diabetes research, was Los Angeles Councilman Tom LaBonge, who was ribbed for his famous love of television cameras and his rather ample waist size. 

But the real focus of Thursday night's dinner was on the two politicians selected to roast LaBonge: mayoral rivals Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti.

FULL COVERAGE: L.A.'s race for mayor

The candidates have been trading bitter campaign attacks since they advanced earlier this month to a runoff election. On Thursday, their barbs were more lighthearted, but still had bite.

Garcetti told the crowd he was glad the fundraiser had raised half a million dollars for charity, but complained that Greuel, the city controller, "somehow identified $160 million in waste, fraud and abuse.” Greuel has claimed to have uncovered $160 million in waste as controller -– a figure Garcetti disputes.

Greuel jabbed backed with a joke that implied Garcetti can't be trusted -- a theme she's been pushing at endorsement meetings with city employee unions.

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Greuel joked that one of her supporters had gotten valets to affix Greuel campaign stickers to the bumper of every car parked at the hotel. She said the supporter couldn't have put Garcetti's stickers on because “nothing sticks to Eric.”

The mayoral contenders avoided sinking to the off-color depths the roast is known for. In previous years, City Council President Herb Wesson has laughed about sexually transmitted diseases and Councilman Dennis Zine has appeared in women's clothing, dressed as his alter-ego, Denise. 

But Garcetti and Greuel did poke fun at themselves. Garcetti, who has been teased for claiming ties to many cultures, said he wanted to be able to relate to the audience at the dinner, which is hosted by two lobbyists and City Councilman Mitchell Englander. "My great-great-great-grandfather was a lobbyist,” he said.   

He also said he was excited about the new pope, Francis, an Argentine named Jorge Bergoglio, because he, like Garcetti, is a “Latino with an Italian last name.”

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also joked that he considered the top job at the Vatican after Pope Benedict XVI retired. “Pope would be a great stepping-stone,” said the mayor, whose political future has been the subject of considerable speculation.

He also teased Greuel and Garcetti about the Department of Water and Power workers union, which has spent millions on Greuel's behalf. Garcetti's campaign has complained that Greuel would not be independent from union head Brian D'Arcy. “She’d fit perfectly in Brian D’Arcy’s pocket, right where Eric wants to be," Villaraigosa quipped. 

The mayor, and his love life, was also the subject of jokes. Englander said he hopes the mayor’s official residence is steam-cleaned before the winner of the May 21 runoff moves in.

Low voter turnout in the primary race was also grist for humor. Englander said there were more people at the dinner than voted in the election. Garcetti said he had a solution: give every person who votes free medical marijuana.

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--Kate Linthicum 

Photo: Wendy Greuel addresses the media at an election night gathering in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday; Eric Garcetti talks to the media after casting his ballot Tuesday. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times; Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

L.A. Now Live: Californians favor stricter gun laws

Californians are overwhelmingly in favor of strict gun control measures that impose background checks for all gun purchases and toughen penalties for illegally purchasing or using a gun, as well as enhancing efforts to keep guns away from the severely mentally ill, a new poll has found.

The findings crossed demographic and political lines, with nine of 10 gun owners and even more non-gun owners favoring background checks for all gun purchases. However, two-thirds of state residents opposed arming teachers in schools.

A more in-depth look showed some issues divided among racial lines and geographical boundaries. Whites were twice as likely to own guns as Latinos and less likely to favor a five-cent bullet tax. Latinos felt more favorable toward putting armed guards in schools.

The poll, conducted this month by USC and the Los Angeles Times, surveyed 1,501 people. It comes just as Congress debates tighter gun restrictions nationally, including increased background checks for gun purchases.

Join us at 9 a.m. as we discuss the poll and what it means for gun laws with Times reporter Seema Mehta.

 

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After pension meeting, business group reaffirms support for Greuel

The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce on Thursday reaffirmed its support for mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel after calling her in to clarify remarks she made about retirement benefits.

Chamber president Gary Toebben said Greuel reassured his group that she is looking to make new cuts in pension costs and has no interest in challenging any of the reductions in benefits that have already been approved. The chamber's political action committee endorsed Greuel in February.

FULL COVERAGE: L.A.'s race for mayor

"She assured us she has no intent to make an effort to roll back any of the pension reforms that have already taken place at the city," Toebben said, "and that her goal would be to sit at the table and negotiate more reforms in the future."

Toebben said Greuel did not offer specific proposals during the hourlong meeting. "She did say that what we have done in the past she supports, but that it's not enough and won't lead us to fiscal solvency," he added.

Greuel left without speaking to The Times. "She's on a tight schedule," said spokeswoman Shannon Murphy.

Greuel was asked to appear before the chamber after she told The Times she would reopen negotiations with city unions on a decision to increase the retirement age and reduce pensions for new hires. She backtracked a few days later, saying she only wants to talk with union leaders about avoiding a lawsuit over the cuts, which take effect July 1.

For weeks, Greuel has sided with city unions who say the city failed to properly negotiate the pension changes before imposing them. That argument is at the heart of a challenge by the unions, who want city officials to rescind the reductions.

The pension rollbacks are designed to save $4 billion over three decades, according to city budget officials.

Greuel campaign co-chairman Bob Hertzberg, a former Assembly speaker, sought to reassure chamber officials earlier this week, sending an email saying Greuel would explore increasing the retirement age for existing city employees.

Toebben said the chamber also will reschedule a campaign fundraiser for Greuel that was originally set for this week. It was canceled because of last-minute scheduling and a weak response, he said.

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-- David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall

twitter.com/davidzahniser

Photo: Los Angeles City Controller and mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel. Credit: Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times

L.A. Votes: Endorsements flow as Greuel and Garcetti seek edge

A new stream of endorsements emerged in Los Angeles' mayoral race Wednesday as Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti sought an edge in the May 21 runoff. The backing has two overarching goals – blunting criticism the two Democrats are facing about their ability to confront the most pressing financial problems in the city, and courting voters who supported candidates who did not survive the primary.

Greuel won the backing of former Republican Mayor Richard Riordan, who pledged he would serve as a senior advisor to her administration for a salary of $1 a year. This move, long sought by Greuel, comes as the city controller has faced increased heat about her support by the city’s labor unions and recent statements about her views on pension reductions for newly hired city employees. The latter prompted the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, which has backed Greuel, to call on the controller to explain her position on retirement benefits in person today.

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Greuel’s campaign hit back, with a co-chairman of her campaign, former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, promising that Greuel would fight to cut retirement costs at City Hall, including by exploring raising retirement age for existing city employees, a hugely controversial proposal.

Greuel’s rival Garcetti, who edged her in the March 5 primary, also named new endorsements on Wednesday. He picked up the backing of Republican developer Steve Soboroff and an influential African American Democratic club, which could help Garcetti make inroads with two key groups he and Greuel are battling over: white GOP voters in the Valley and black Democrats in South Los Angeles.

FULL COVERAGE: L.A.'s race for mayor

In other city races, the candidates seeking to become Los Angeles’ next city attorney clashed in the first runoff debate, with incumbent Carmen Trutanich and challenger Mike Feuer showing they have starkly different visions of the role of the city’s top prosecutor. And the statement for two competing medical marijuana initiatives survived legal challenges to appear unchanged on the May ballot.

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Comments, questions or tips on city elections? Tweet me at @LATSeema

Photo: Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. Credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times

Citing presence of reporters, Coliseum head won't give testimony

Objecting to the presence of Times reporters, the top manager of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum refused to answer questions Wednesday and walked out of a deposition in an open-government lawsuit against the stadium's overseers.

Interim General Manager John Sandbrook left the deposition in the suit brought by The Times and a 1st Amendment group. The Times would not agree to his lawyer's demands that it exclude the two reporters or prohibit them from publishing Sandbrook's sworn answers before they are introduced as evidence in a trial.

The suit accuses the governing commission of the taxpayer-owned Coliseum of illegally withholding records from the public and violating state law by conducting months of secret deliberations on a stadium lease with USC. The commission denies the allegations.

FULL COVERAGE: L.A. Coliseum under scrutiny

Sandbrook's attorney, Deborah Fox, said she was suspending the videotaped deposition so she could ask Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Luis A. Lavin to issue an order banning the reporters from the session. She said their presence was "an attempt to intimidate and harass and annoy" as Sandbrook answered an attorney's questions under oath. Under the deposition rules, the reporters were not allowed to pose questions.

"They should not be able to report on issues that unfold here in this deposition," Fox said.

Times attorney Jeff Glasser, who was to question Sandbrook, said the reporters were entitled to attend the proceeding, held at a downtown law office, and the courts have allowed journalists to observe depositions even if they were not involved in the case at hand. He said any effort to prevent The Times' reporters from publishing material from the Sandbrook deposition would be unconstitutional.

"We are absolutely, 100%, not going to agree to gag our reporters," Glasser said. "This case is all about government transparency."

Garcetti picks up supporters in key demographics

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti picked up support from a prominent Republican leader and an influential African American Democratic club on Wednesday.

The endorsements from Playa Vista developer Steve Soboroff and the New Frontier Democratic Club could help Garcetti make inroads with two groups he and his opponent Wendy Greuel are battling over: white GOP voters and black Democrats. Those constituencies voted overwhelmingly in the primary for loosing candidates Kevin James, a Republican, and Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, a Democrat who is African American.

Neither Perry nor James have announced whether they will endorse in the runoff, although the actions of several Perry backers on Tuesday suggested she may be close to backing Garcetti. Several members of Perry's campaign and council staff showed up at the New Frontier endorsement meeting Tuesday night sporting Garcetti buttons, including Perry's campaign spokeswoman, Helen Sanchez.

FULL COVERAGE: L.A.'s race for mayor

Sanchez said Perry told her staff "they were free to do whatever they want in the election,” and said Perry was still “mulling” an endorsement.

The club, which backed Perry in the primary, voted 71 to 22 to back Garcetti. Greuel's attacks on Perry's past financial problems -- she and her then-husband filed jointly for bankruptcy in 1994 -- may have played into the overwhelming vote for Garcetti. On each seat at the meeting, there was a copy of a letter from the California National Organization of Women blasting Greuel for highlighting Perry’s bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, Garcetti and Greuel have been courting James. Garcetti shared dinner with the former candidate two weeks ago and on Friday, Greuel met with him and former Mayor Richard Riordan to talk about an endorsement on Friday, according to Riordan, who said after the meeting that he had not decided whether to back Greuel.

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A Republican who has pushed to scale back pension benefits for city employees, Riordan's endorsement could help Greuel among conservative voters. But her endorsement by city employee unions that have fought Riordan's proposals -- and her backing this week from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor -- could complicate that.

Garcetti's team hopes Soboroff's support will help them earn San Fernando Valley votes. Soboroff, who lost a bid for mayor in the primary in 2001 despite broad support among voters in the Valley, recorded a video for Garcetti. In a news release, he asks his supporters to vote for Garcetti, whom he said would bring services to “both sides of the hill.”

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Photo: Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Steve Soboroff. Credit: Katie Falkenberg/Los Angeles Times

Fate of controversial Northridge elder care project weighed

A Los Angeles city zoning administrator said he would continue to receive comments through Wednesday on a controversial 83,000-square-foot, three-story elder care project before making a decision on whether to approve the plan.

Associate zoning administrator Fernando Tovar said it would take at least another two weeks to review the “hundreds” of remarks he has so far received about the 162-bed home proposed for 2.3 acres at Parthenia Street and Shoshone Avenue in the Sherwood Forest community of southern Northridge.

The project has spawned fierce opposition from residents who argue that the structure would be incompatible with the surrounding neighborhood in terms of scale, size and architectural design. They worry about increased traffic and noise and reject the argument that there is a dearth of this type of senior housing in the community.

Backers of dueling medical pot measures tangle in court

A Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that ballot arguments for two opposing Los Angeles medical marijuana measures do not violate the law and should appear as they were written in the city's official voter guide.

Attorneys for both measures had alleged the other side violated the city election code.

Lawyers for Proposition D, which is backed by the City Council and a labor union representing marijuana dispensary workers, sued the city first. They claimed the ballot argument in favor of the competing Measure F, which is supported by a separate coalition of dispensaries and other medical marijuana groups, was unfair because it refers to Proposition D as “a Trojan Horse” that “was slapped on the ballot at the last minute by the City Council.”

In court Wednesday, Proposition D attorney Bradley Hertz said a ballot argument in favor of a measure should explain why voters should vote for it, not why they shouldn't vote for the competition.

“If I were to ask someone, ‘Why do you like hamburgers?’ I don’t think a good answer would be: ‘Because they’re better than hot dogs,’” Hertz said.

But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joanne O'Donnell ruled the language should stand. “It seems logical than an argument for one ballot measure may include statements regarding the insufficiency of another,” O'Donnell wrote in an opinion.

A separate challenge brought by the backers of Measure F was also dismissed by O'Donnell. In that case, Measure F attorneys argued that the ballot argument on behalf of Proposition D was unfair because it called itself "the only measure" that will raise taxes and control and regulate dispensaries.

Measure F, which was the first to qualify for the ballot, would allow an unlimited number of dispensaries so long as operators pay taxes, keep a certain distance from schools and each other and meet other requirements.

A third marijuana dispensary measure will appear on the ballot as Initiative Ordinance E, which would allow only older pot shops to continue operating. It initially was supported by the union of dispensary workers and a group of some of the city's original dispensaries, but those groups are now backing Proposition D.

Crafted by the council, Proposition D also would allow only the oldest dispensaries to continue operating, while raising taxes on medical marijuana sales.

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Photo: Medical marijuana at a Los Angeles dispensary. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

L.A. Votes: Wendy Greuel faces questions on pensions, labor support

Labor support and pensions for city workers continue to be a key issue in the Los Angeles mayoral contest, as Wendy Greuel faces fresh questions about her backing from public-employee unions and her stance on a City Council vote last year to trim retirement benefits for new workers.

Greuel has long criticized rival Eric Garcetti’s City Council vote to roll back pension benefits for new hires without engaging in collective bargaining with city worker unions. Recent statements that she would push to reopen talks with labor over the decision have raised concerns among some of Greuel’s pro-business backers. The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday called on Greuel, the city controller, to appear personally to explain her position.

Also on Tuesday, Greuel accepted the endorsement of the 600,00-member county Federation of Labor, a union umbrella group that fought the pension changes. The controller also backed off an earlier suggestion that she wanted a new round of negotiations over the pension cuts, saying Tuesday she simply wants to meet with labor leaders to discuss ways of avoiding a lawsuit over the matter.

FULL COVERAGE: L.A.'s race for mayor

Columnist Steve Lopez talked to voters in the San Fernando Valley who say Greuel’s labor backing is costing her support in the key, voter-rich region.

Meanwhile, Garcetti and Greuel continued to rack up new endorsements, with Garcetti earning the support of council members Paul Koretz and Paul Krekorian, and Greuel picking up the backing of Los Angeles Unified School District Board President Monica Garcia and newly elected Los Angeles Community College Trustee Mike Eng.

Garcia, who won reelection to the board this month, faces a new challenge as a majority of her board colleagues voted to limit the number of consecutive years a board member can serve as president.

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The first debate of the runoff occurs Wednesday night -- in the city attorney race. Incumbent Carmen Trutanich will face off with Mike Feuer at a downtown meeting hosted by the Italian American Lawyers Assn. and the Metropolitan News-Enterprise. Feuer on Tuesday also picked up the endorsement of the county Federation of Labor.

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-- Seema Mehta

Comments, questions or tips on city elections? Tweet me at @LATSeema

Photo: Los Angeles mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel speaks to media March 6. Credit: Nick Ut / Associated Press