01/28/05

LC050128

For sixty-seven years, Town Hall Los Angeles has educated and
inspired audiences through dialog with newsmakers on vital
issues. It supports democracy by fostering civic participation.
Information on membership and programs is on our website.

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

They debate, you decide. Mayor Hahn squares off against a State
Senator, a former Police Chief and two former Assembly Speakers.

Robert Hertzberg>> You just signed off and campaigned on a deal
that kept Los Angeles poor for the next three years.

James Hahn>> Bob, I don't know what was worse. When he had a
surplus and didn't pay me or when you created the huge deficit
and couldn't pay me.

Val>> From the beaches to the freeways to the airport, which
candidate for mayor would do the best job for the environment?

It's all straight ahead on tonight's special edition of Life and
Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Welcome to this Life and Times special. We're bringing
you excerpts from a debate among the major candidates for Los
Angeles Mayor. The debate was sponsored by KABC Television and
took place at LACMA. Questions centered on traffic, pollution,
infrastructure and growth. Mark Brown of ABC 7 moderated the
debate and questions were asked by board members of The League
of Conservation Voters.

Ericka Smith>> Congressman Villaraigosa, the airport department
operates four airports in Southern California, yet LAX continues
to draw millions of passengers from all over Southern
California. Often these folks spend hours commuting to the Los
Angeles airport, driving past airports like Burbank, John Wayne
or Ontario, tying up traffic and pumping pollution into the air.
What is your plan to bring airport services nearer to the people
currently driving to LAX?

Antonio Villaraigosa>> I'm proud to say that, along with
Council Member Jack Weiss and Council Member Parks, I opposed
the eleven billion dollar boondoggle at LAX. I did because I
understand that the 405 and the west side are already a parking
lot. I support building airport capacity in this region, but
when you go into Washington, D.C., you go into three airports.
When you go into New York, you go into three airports. When you
go to the Bay area, you go into three airports. Why would we
put all our airport capacity in one airport?

The fastest growing part of the region is in the east. We can
invest much of that money, of that eleven billion dollars, at
Ontario Airport and Palmdale where the growth in the region is.
We need a mayor that understands that the key to a great city is
building our infrastructure, but building it in a way that
addresses the needs of our neighborhood and in the way that
builds capacity, not at the airport. Finally, let me just say
this. Four years ago, Jim Hahn and I made a promise to the
people of Westchester and West Los Angeles. We said we would
not increase capacity at LAX. I'm proud to say that I kept that
promise.

James Hahn>> Well, I'm glad to say that I did too, Antonio, and
that's what the plan is all about. You and I agreed that that
airport can grow more than 78.9 million passengers. That's what
the Southern California Association of Governments in El Segundo
and Inglewood wanted us to do and that's what my plan does, and
it reduces air pollution. We connect the Green Line to the
airport with the People Mover. We put fly-away centers to have
people ride buses into and have clean natural gas buses into the
airport rather than drive their cars.

Yes, Ontario is a great airport. We built a great new terminal
there, but it's not being used. We need to force these airlines
to use an airport that we've already used and we're also very
interested in developing Palmdale. I hope the people in Orange
County know that I'm not giving up. I think that El Toro would
be a great place for an international airport and we shouldn't
throw a natural asset like that away.

Bernard Parks>> I think it's clear that this whole issue of 78
million is misleading the public. We have no control over how
many passengers come to LAX, so to mislead the public is
disingenuous. We need to make sure all four of our airports
work as one system, to ensure that our airports are regional air
and ground transportation. We also need to make sure the next
step is we go and get state legislation to have an airport
authority to deal with all six county airports. Then we will
truly have a dispersed and regional airport. I am the only
candidate that's proposed an alternative to this that was
adopted unanimously by the Board of Supervisors.

Robert Hertzberg>> As I approach this issue, I ask the question
that I ask every time I deal with issues facing this city. What
does the city look like in 2030? What's the air transportation
system look like and how do we create one that works? It's been
articulated here clearly that it's not based upon moving it in
the center of congestion and traffic. It is a regional system,
but I would argue that the regional system should be one that is
five-county based so that all airports, not just those located
in the county of Los Angeles and all of those residents --
twelve percent from San Diego, twenty-six percent from Orange
County -- pay their fair share of the burden of air traffic in
the region.

Richard Alarcon>> Ladies and gentlemen, the bucket is full.
You cannot just paint the bucket to make it better. We need
more capacity. We need another bucket. We need another
airport. Any fifth grader can figure that out when they're
sitting on the 405 for two hours going to LAX. That's why I'm
introducing legislation in January to build a regional airport
authority that transcends the power of the Los Angeles World
Airport Authority and will provide the leverage to build a new
airport north, south, east, west, wherever it needs to be. We
may need two or three more international airports, but we cannot
continue to fill this bucket because it's spewing out all kinds
of negative aspects of quality of life into our communities.

Mark Brown>> Councilman Villaraigosa, fifteen seconds to
counter-respond.

Antonio Villaraigosa>> If you want to see who I am and how
strongly I believe in the environment, just look at my last
vote. I knew what I had at stake with the County Federation of
Labor endorsement if I voted against LAX, but I voted against it
anyway because I knew it was the wrong thing for Los Angeles.
I'm a man who has the courage of his convictions. I'll stand up
and say no when no is the right thing to do.

Andi Liebenbaum>> Council Member Parks, Proposition O, the
clean water bond, passed with the support of over seventy-six
percent of the voters of Los Angeles. What will you do to make
sure that the city is accountable for using the bond funds to
actually improve water quality at our beaches, lakes and rivers?

Bernard Parks>> Well, I think first of all, we have to realize
that that was a long struggle and the mayor of the city of Los
Angeles and the city attorney fought that for two years. Now
that we have Proposition O and we have the Baykeeper lawsuit,
it's absolutely essential that the highest level city
government, the mayor, has, if necessary, weekly meetings to sit
down and talk about how this is going to be administered. We
cannot ignore nor tell the communities that we're going to do
something and not do it. That's why our bond funds have failed
in the past.

We need to make sure that not only the letter, but the spirit of
Proposition O is implemented, and we need to also realize in the
Baykeeper lawsuit there are other issues that were not in
Proposition O that we need to go back and re-evaluate.
Proposition O is really the baseline. It's not the ceiling. We
need to come back at a later time and continue the process of
looking at environmentally safe water for our rivers, our
oceans, because people have to be educated. We need to make
sure that the daily minimums are taken care of. All of that is
part of it. We need to have the structure to move forward to
make it happen.

Robert Hertzberg>> I'll tell you, I'm so excited that the
people of Los Angeles voted so overwhelmingly for this kind of
measure. It really is inspiring. Let me tell you a couple of
things that I would do in this process. First, I would make it
completely transparent. I would have all of the negotiations,
all of the discussions, on the web like I'm doing in my
campaign, to involve people in the process.

Two, it would be part of the larger strategic plan that I talked
about earlier with respect to the mayor's strategy, including
every other aspect of what we're doing in our environmental
strategy. Lastly, I want to coordinate with nonprofit
corporations to bring you in, bring everybody in who cares
deeply in this process, and leverage those assets and resources.

James Hahn>> Here's what we need to do. We need to recognize
that Proposition O, as Councilman Parks said, is the baseline.
Now, Councilman, the Baykeeper lawsuit was about our problem
with sewage spills and Proposition O was about the issue of
water quality and what's going on in terms of what goes into the
Santa Monica Bay. You know what we ought to say? I want to put
together a group of all the cities in Los Angeles County,
including the county of Los Angeles. Let's work together so
that we're talking about eventually cleaning up all the storm
water that goes into Santa Monica Bay. I'm going to ask Mark
Gold from Heal The Bay, I'm going to ask Fran Diamond and
Theresa Viagas from Proposition 50 to serve on this Proposition
0 committee and that will be the guarantee that we're going to
spend those funds the way people want to.

Antonio Villaraigosa>> Let me stand up for a colleague here.
Mr. Parks knows full well the difference between Measure O and
the Baykeeper lawsuit. He does because, working with me, he
helped to settle the Baykeeper lawsuit and ensure that Measure O
was on the ballot. Let me tell you what I've done as well. I
ensured working with many of you that we'd put amendments in
Measure O to ensure that there was a citizen oversight committee
and no pork, that we'd work to put a timetable for
implementation, that we'd work and focus our efforts with at-
source pollution, that we involve the Water Quality Board so
that we could clean up our beaches. I can tell you this. We
did something about Measure O. That's why we know the
difference between Measure O and the Baykeeper lawsuit.

Mark Brown>> Mr. Villaraigosa, your time is up.

Richard Alarcon>> Water is the essential element of life.
People define quality of life by how they use the water. In
fact, we created -- I introduced a bill to expand opportunities
to improve our urban river parkways because LAX was one big
concrete river that didn't make any sense. We need to build
opportunities to use our water to create quality of life in our
communities. The fact of the matter is, I'm suing the city of
Los Angeles because they overcharge people for the water they
use and, if they didn't overcharge them and if they didn't
transfer that money from DWP, they would have had $2.1 billion
dollars that they could have invested in desalinization plants
in our region and create real opportunities to preserve the
fresh water system.

Mark Brown>> Councilman Parks, you have fifteen seconds.

Bernard Parks>> Thank you. I think that what's important is to
realize that the mayor has an answer to everything, but the
solution to nothing. He has shown over and over and over again
his unwillingness to tackle the negative problems. He will sit
here today and tell us the difference between waste water and
storm water, but does nothing for either one. The issue is, as
an environmentalist, I'm concerned about both of them, whether
there is a Baykeeper or whether there is a Proposition O.

Larlin Mintz>> Council Member Villaraigosa, as mayor, how will
you reduce the disproportionate impacts of environmental
degradation on communities of low income and communities of
color?

Antonio Villaraigosa>> I've often said that a great city is a
city where we're growing and prospering together. A great city
is where we realize that all of us are in it together. We have
to speak out to the fact that, in South Los Angeles and the
Wilmington area around the port, we have children who are
getting asthma in an alarming rate. We've got to speak out
about the fact that where you put prisons and dumping grounds,
they're almost always in areas where poor people live. I've
represented those areas my entire life and what you'll see as
mayor is someone who'll speak out to that. Not in a way that
puts us versus them, but in a way that inspires us that we're
all in it together.

James Hahn>> Well, you know, as mayor, I took this issue very
seriously. We were proud to complete the sewer project called
eSys so that people in South Central, especially kids, aren't
running in streets that are flowing with raw sewage. We fixed
that problem. In Wilmington, we changed the attitude of the
port because I understand they've had a tremendous burden from
the port over the years and we're changing that. The Community
Benefits Agreement for the airport, over $500 million dollars,
communities who it impacted, Lenox, Inglewood, where the kids
can't go to school because they can't hear what's going on.
We're going to fix that, so I take this very seriously.

Richard Alarcon>> Environmental justice has been at the core of
my values long before I was a councilman starting twelve years
ago. I chaired the Environmental Justice Committee for the
State Senate and I have fought to rebuild communities that were
blighted by years of underdevelopment. The General Motors plant
is a thriving beautiful place instead of the blight that
occurred before. I created the Urban River Parkway specifically
to address the issues of communities of poverty that did not
have the opportunities to participate in clean parks and other
programs. There is so much more to do on the Environmental
Justice Board. At the Air Quality Management District, I helped
write the policies for environmental justice throughout our
region.

Bernard Parks>> In my judgment, the way we move forward on this
issue is to stop the insane argument that jobs are more
important that human beings and the health of our human beings.
We need to ensure that our Planning Department actually plans
and uses zoning tools to stop these types of issues in certain
communities while they're allowing them to be ignored in other
communities.

We need to ensure that, when we talk about the community benefit
package, you're clear that it's an agreement with a group of
people that have not been proved by FAA, a group of people who
do not live in the city of Los Angeles, a group of people, in my
judgment, who have been used as opposed to being effective
people that are dealing with city issues.

Robert Hertzberg>> I have talked about ending the gross
receipts taxes as we know it, I've talked about adding more
police officers to the Los Angeles Police Department without a
tax increase. But there's a responsibility with the benefit and
everybody takes their fair share in this society. I spent years
as a young man fighting against the prison in East Los Angeles.
I know it, I understand it. All of us have to work together,
recycle more, contribute more to this society to bear our fair
share.

Antonio Villaraigosa>> Yes, let me speak to that community
benefits package that you keep on hearing Mayor Hahn and others
speak to. I actually voted for it. In fact, I stood up on the
floor when it was only at five million dollars and I said we can
do better and we expanded it to twenty-five million dollars. If
you had done your homework, you'd know that.

Ericka Smith>> Council Member Parks, commute time in Los
Angeles keeps getting longer making air quality worse and
everybody mad. What is your plan to get people out of their
cars and how will they get around if you succeed.

Bernard Parks>> First of all, we need to do several things. We
need a mayor that will go to MTA and create regional planning
for transportation, one that is not conflicted by the donations
and contributions he receives, not one that's conflicted by not
showing up, not one that fails to show up for the budget
meetings and all those important meetings, not one that votes
against the Valley rapid transit, but takes credit for it once
it's now in place. We need to make sure that we have regional
planning with MTA, regional planning with SCAG.

We need to start building houses, jobs and our transportation on
our corridors where people may be able to walk to work or use
public transportation. We need to make sure that, as we move
forward on all these issues, that it's on a regional basis. We
cannot have a news conference that says "I fixed one hundred
intersections in the city of Los Angeles" when there are forty
thousand of them. We need to make sure that we are looking to
the future and ensuring, with the increase in people that live
in or will be moving to this city, that jobs, transportation,
housing, all those issues, are dealt with at one time and
elevated in the mayor's office to one person who's responsible
for evaluating those.

James Hahn>> Well, you know, those twenty-five worst
intersections that I fix every year affect one million drivers
every day and the program we have to concentrate on the thirty-
five streets that criss-cross Los Angeles are streets in our
program that will save fifteen million hours of commuter time.
We could have done a lot better here in Los Angeles over the
last few years if the Sacramento politicians hadn't gone against
the will of the voters and kept Los Angeles County from getting
$1.3 billion dollars in traffic congestion relief funds. I'm
tired of these guys from Sacramento telling us how much money
they gave us after they've been taking, you know, $150 million
or $175 million dollars a year. We're getting back pennies on
the dollar and they want credit for it.

Mark Brown>> Anyone else?

Robert Hertzberg>> Let me tell you something, Jim Hahn. Let me
just tell you something. I guess, then, you didn't want the
$145 million dollars for the Orange Line or the $250 million
dollars for the Expo Line. I can go down the list and give you
a long list of what happened. Secondly, I can tell you, when I
was in Sacramento, that didn't happen and I can further tell
you, Mayor, that when you were there, you just signed off and
campaigned on a deal that kept Los Angeles poor for the next
three years with this deal that you say was such a bad deal.

James Hahn>> We had to stop you somehow, Bob.

Robert Hertzberg>> Yeah, right (laughter).

Antonio Villaraigosa>> I resemble that remark (laughter).

Mark Brown>> Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen.

Antonio Villaraigosa>> The fact is --

Mark Brown>> -- We have a format.

Robert Hertzberg>> Come on, let's make it interesting.

Mark Brown>> I know. It is interesting, but we are slaves to
the format. Mr. Alarcon?

Richard Alarcon>> Ladies and gentlemen, the fact is that Mayor
Hahn negotiated with Arnold Schwarzenegger the deal that he just
criticized and did not give the legislature the opportunity to
negotiate for Los Angeles. That's why we lost the $1.3 billion
dollars. And by the way, because of the vote of the legislature
which allowed for that money to be a loan, not a complete
taking, the city of Los Angeles will get that money back within
four years.

Antonio Villaraigosa>> Once again, Jim Hahn is making excuses.
We don't need excuses. We need to get traffic moving again. We
need to stop thinking small and think big. We need to get that
Red Line to go down Wilshire Boulevard all the way to the ocean.
We need to connect the Green Line to LAX and down Lincoln
Boulevard to the Expo Line. We need to connect the Red Line in
North Hollywood and connect it to the Metrolink in Sylmar.
That's what leadership is about and, if you elect me mayor,
that's what I'll do working with you.

Mark Brown>> Ladies and gentlemen, please, please. Councilman
Parks, you have fifteen seconds.

Bernard Parks>> I think what we find as the mayor's response is
very interesting. It would only take him four hundred years to
fix all of these intersections (laughter) and as I know in term
limits, he's only got a few more months. The issue is that,
when we think about the mayor blaming everyone but himself, he's
been in office for four years. There have been no results.

Ericka Smith>> Mayor Hahn, the Bush administration has
attempted to roll back basic environmental protections embodied
in the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Governor
Schwarzenegger recently vetoed a bill that would have limited
pollution from the ports in Long Beach and San Pedro. How will
you use your office to persuade Sacramento and the federal
government to fight for a healthy environment in Los Angeles?

James Hahn>> Thank goodness that we have stronger environmental
laws in California and especially Southern California than the
federal government would want us to have, and we're going to
continue to do that. I'm glad we have a South Coast Air Quality
Management District that insists on tough pollution standards
and we're going to stick with those. I've committed at the Port
of Los Angeles that, no matter how big that grows, we're going
to be doing everything we can to reduce pollution.

Our commitment is to switch to low sulfur diesel fuel now, to
plug in ships to electric power now, to retrofit diesel trucks
now as part of the agreement that we had with the NRDC. We're
going to make this a cleaner, friendlier port regardless of
whether or not the federal standards allow us to be dirty or
not. Again, I live next to the Port of Los Angeles. That's
where my kids live and I want that to be as safe a community as
we can have it.

Robert Hertzberg>> Let me tell you something. Los Angeles does
not get its fair share, period, end of issue, from the federal
government or from the state government. I was there. I saw
it. I was Speaker of the Assembly when Jim Hahn was elected
mayor of Los Angeles and let me tell you something. Radio
silence, substantially. There is so much money, there are so
many opportunities to fight for Los Angeles in the federal
government, in the state government. I opened a Speaker's
office in Washington, D.C. to be able to coordinate our
activities and fight for the dollars to stay on it, committee
hearing by committee hearing, to make sure that Los Angeles and
California got its fair share.

Richard Alarcon>> As Los Angeles goes, so goes the region. I
believe that we need to build a partnership. We need to grow
our Environmental Affairs Department to be a staunch advocate
for environmental policy not just for Los Angeles, but to be a
model for the nation. We can stand up to President Bush on his
environmental policies. We can stand up in Sacramento to fight
for our fair share and ensure that laws are implemented that are
fair, but it starts with the people of Los Angeles. I believe
they want a strong mayor to use the bully pulpit to send a loud
message to the world that we can be the cleanest, safest city.

Antonio Villaraigosa>> This question hits the point on the
nail. I mean, when you look at the issue of leadership in this
city, the truth is, there is none. What we need right now is a
mayor who can go to Sacramento, fight for us when it's right,
but also work with the legislature. What we need is a mayor who
can go to the Congress and create the consensus and the dialog
important to protecting our air and our water. As mayor of the
city of Los Angeles, I've been Speaker of the California State
Assembly. I know how to work with both the legislature and the
federal government and I'll be successful in defending our air
and our water.

Bernard Parks>> As far as the Bush administration, the Los
Angeles City Council has taken a very strong position on many of
the issues that he wanted to overturn of California law. Many
of those motions were created by myself. We also need to know
that we aren't getting our fair share and it comes down to two
things: lack of leadership and a lack of respect by those other
governmental entities that pay no attention to the city of Los
Angeles. When the mayor says "now", we need a specific date.
When do we get those ships on electricity? When he says "now",
when do we get those regional transportation plans? When he
says "now", when do we stop LAX? His now is a hollow now.

Mark Brown>> Mr. Mayor?

James Hahn>> Again, I'm glad you admitted, Bob, that the city
was not getting its fair share from Sacramento when you were
Speaker of the legislature. Four years ago when I ran for
mayor, I asked Antonio -- Can you believe it? They had a twelve
billion dollar surplus four years ago -- I said, "Antonio,
you've got a twelve billion dollar surplus. Why are you still
taking property tax dollars, $150 million dollars a year, away
from the city of Los Angeles?" Bob, I don't know what was
worse. When he had a surplus and didn't pay me or when you
created the huge deficit and couldn't pay me (laughter).

Val>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at
Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> Next time on Life and Times --

Nothing says California like the image of a palm tree, but is
that picture about to change?

>> Some of these have probably been here since the late 1800's.
Now like all things that get old, they suffer from old age and
are susceptible to illness. We see a decline in these, but we
have new ones coming up as well.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.

For sixty-seven years, Town Hall Los Angeles has educated and
inspired audiences through dialog with newsmakers on vital
issues. It supports democracy by fostering civic participation.
Information on membership and programs is on our website.