Mayoral contenders square off

  MIKE CHIEN The six leading mayoral candidates faced off
for a debate in Royce Hall Wednesday night. From left: State
Controller Kathleen Connell, businessman
Steve Soboroff, City Attorney James
Hahn, former Assemblyman Antonio
Villaraigosa, Congressman Xavier Becerra,
and City Councilman Joel Wachs.

By Steve Christol
Daily Bruin Contributor

In a heated debate in Royce Hall last night, the six leading Los
Angeles mayoral candidates expressed their views on issues ranging
from campaign financing to the energy crisis.

Arguments developed between several candidates at the event.
Before the debate began, candidates James K. Hahn and Steve
Soboroff threw insults at each other.

While talking to reporters about campaign financing, Hahn
demanded that candidates reveal their sources for campaign funding
and make it clear who is supporting their bids for office. At that
point, Soboroff, among several candidates receiving large sums of
money from unknown sources, walked in the room and approached
Hahn.

Soboroff reacted vehemently to Hahn’s questions about
revealing campaign funding sources and accused Hahn of not
accomplishing enough during his time in public service.

“For 20 years you’ve had a chance to change the
system,” Soboroff said. “You’ve been taking money
from the tobacco companies. You’ve been taking money from
your father.”

During his two-minute introduction at the start of the debate,
candidate Xavier Becerra addressed the UCLA students who protested
at Royce Hall two weeks ago, when the first debate was
scheduled.

Supporting those students and their demand for the UC Regents to
repeal SP-1 and SP-2, Becerra told students: “Do it again,
and fight, and Carolina and I will fight with you.” People in
the audience reacted with cheers and applause.

Carolina Reyes, Becerra’s wife, is an assistant professor
at the UCLA School of Medicine.

After the opening statements, and just before the panel of four
L.A. journalists began questioning the six candidates, uninvited
mayoral candidate Francis DellaVecchia approached the stage and
demanded two minutes to speak to let the audience know his name and
to protest the debate for excluding nine of the 15 candidates
running in next week’s primary.

He was ushered out of the building by security while yelling,
“This is not a democracy.”

The debate covered issues such as the living wage, affordable
housing, the Rampart scandal and the state of the L.A. Police
Department, and the energy crisis in California.

Mario Valdiva, a second-year computer science student, said
public safety was the most important issue the mayoral candidates
discussed Wednesday night.

“Right now the streets aren’t safe and the police
need to do something about that,” Valdiva said. “Where
I live, I’ve had to duck bullets and I have to worry about my
parents and my little sister.”

After the debate, Hahn said college-age individuals are
important members of the voting population in the city but he
wonders why students are not more energized about the issues that
are framing the mayoral race.

“We’d all like a lot more of them to be
voting,” Hahn said.

Councilman Joel Wachs said that if the process included young
people more they would believe that their voice matters.

The only female candidate, Kathleen Connell, ended the debate
with hopes of good luck and a competitive touch. “May the
best woman win.”