Scribe Saw It Coming, But He Kept Mum

OK, I’m going out on a limb here. It’s 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, and the polls haven’t even closed yet. But I’m calling the election.

Antonio Villaraigosa is the mayor of Los Angeles.

(Unless, of course, he isn’t. In which case, you can read my apology in tomorrow’s paper, along with -- possibly -- the notice of my termination.)

The truth is, I knew Jim Hahn was going to lose a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been holding out on you.

The mayor and I were having dinner, and he claimed he was going to win. But it sure didn’t seem like his heart was in it. I asked him what he planned to do if he lost, and I swear I saw relief in his eyes as he talked about some day hanging his lawyer’s shingle, doubling his salary and spending more time with the kids.

Whatever’s in Mayor-elect Villaraigosa’s eyes this morning, it ain’t relief. He’s probably looking in the mirror right now and asking himself:

“What was I thinking?”

Campaign promises aside, the mayor has limited power in a traffic-choked city of sprawling needs, beginning with a desperate shortage of living-wage jobs, scandalously high dropout rates and a critical housing shortage, to hit just a few of the highlights.

Top of the morning to you, Mr. Mayor.

Newspaper deadlines being what they are, I didn’t have the results of the election before it came time to file this column. But I talked to Bob Hertzberg on Monday -- remember him? -- to see if he had any advice for the winner.

“It’s a daunting task,” Hertzberg, the former candidate, now admits. He said he could tell in recent weeks that Villaraigosa was beginning to feel the crushing weight of the challenge. “I saw it in his face, and he shared his thoughts about it.”

That’s understandable. If I had promised a subway to the beach and the reinvigoration of the middle class, as Villaraigosa did, I probably would have been worried too.

Just in case I’m wrong about the outcome, I’m not alone. In fact, I’d be inclined to blame the whole thing on Hertzberg, who predicted Monday that Villaraigosa would win big.

If indeed you just woke up in a city that has its first Latino mayor in modern history, here’s what Hertzberg says you should expect: Villaraigosa will handle his new job the way he handled being speaker of the state Assembly. He’ll be a mayor who happens to be Latino rather than the Latino mayor. That means having an administration that represents and engages every ethnic group in Los Angeles.

Hertzberg won’t be surprised if, despite their differences over the years, Villaraigosa asks for a little advice. If so, here’s what the new mayor can expect to hear.

He should pick a few major problems, Hertzberg told me, lead a high-profile public campaign to fix them and hire a strong enough staff to deal with everything else.

“That doesn’t mean you ignore the L.A. River, or improving library services or animal services,” Hertzberg said.

But you delegate. And unlike former Mayor Richard Riordan, who ruled by fiat with the help of a few billionaire pals, you bring the City Council in on the deal, treating it like your board of directors.

Hertzberg, also a former state Assembly speaker, recommended big-ticket issues that come as no surprise -- education, crime and traffic. Those were his big three in the March election.

There’s not enough space here for Hertzberg, or me, to map out a detailed plan on each subject, but here’s my thumbnail offering:

Education: Even if the mayor doesn’t win any control over the Los Angeles Unified School District, as promised during the campaign he can beef up after-school programs, get more parents and businesses involved and shame Sacramento into fixing a screwball funding system that puts California way beneath the national spending average.

He could do what Hertzberg and school board member David Tokofsky keep yammering about: Link more city services (parks and recreation, libraries, cultural institutions) with schools. This might help, as Tokofsky puts it, “make Los Angeles a place in which families can relish life here.”

Crime: After the roughly 8 million campaign promises for more cops, let’s all vow, here and now, to bring shame on the mayor if he doesn’t produce, to run him out of office and to give him the flashlight beating of his life.

Traffic: Leave the little stuff like left-turn lanes to deputy mayors and other functionaries, and become the leading voice in the nation for more telecommuting, bus and train riding, carpooling and bike riding.

None of this will be a snap, but it’s not as if Mayor Hahn has set the bar sky-high. Over the next four years, a mayor who doesn’t have a phobia about human contact and a City Hall free of corruption scandals would be a vast improvement.

There you go, Mr. Villaraigosa. Congratulations and good luck.

And if I was wrong about this whole thing, my apologies to Mayor Hahn. The good news, Jim, is that I have four more years to find you a date.

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Reach the columnist at [email protected].