IN WITH THE NEW ... VOTER RAGE PUT VILLARAIGOSA IN OFFICE; HE'LL NEED VISION TO STAY THERE.

Byline: EARL O. HUTCHINSON Local View

IN his victory speech, Los Angeles Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa shouted to an election night crowd that he would be the mayor for all the people. For his and all of L.A.'s sake, that pledge must be much more than a celebratory cheer.

L.A. voters want, expect and deserve elected officials to be visible, to take bold, public stands on the issues. Passivity is not an option in a city beset by nightmarish traffic, commercial overdevelopment, rampaging gang violence, horrendous pollution, miserably failing public schools and a City Hall widely seen as distant, removed, even hostile to residents.

Mayor James Hahn had four years to lay out his vision for progress and change in Los Angles. He didn't, and that's why he became the first incumbent in more than three decades to get booted out of office after only one term.

To keep his pledge - and to succeed where Hahn plainly failed - Villaraigosa will have to shatter the still-lingering suspicion that he will cater exclusively to Latino and labor interests. To that end, he rightly downplayed the notion - mostly spun by the national press - that as L.A.'s first Latino mayor in modern times, he would be the shining emblem of Latino power in America. He publicly renounced the brand of identity politics that in past years has done much to polarize and balkanize Los Angeles.

That's a good start. Of course, now he needs to do a deft pirouette and convince black and Latino voters who make up more than half the city's population that he'll make diversity the standard for governing a city as big and complex as Los Angeles. It will be a tough balancing act, and only one small part of an enormously difficult job.

On the plus side, Villaraigosa inherits a city that's in relatively good financial shape. Its budget tops $5 billion, and L.A.'s credit rating is much higher than New York's. In the last four years the city has added more than 75,000 jobs. San Francisco, by comparison, has lost 100,000.

But Villaraigosa will ultimately be deemed a success or failure on how well he deals with the litmus-test issues on which Los Angeles voters grade their public officials - police reform, education and City Hall accountability.

As for police reform, throughout the campaign, Hahn repeatedly slammed Villaraigosa as a soft-on-crime, card-carrying ACLU liberal. It was a low blow, but it touched a nerve among some voters. Villaraigosa must undo the damage by convincing the public that he can and will be tough on crime, vigorously championing a strong and effective, fully resourced Los Angeles Police Department.

At the same time, he must get L.A. out from under the federal consent decree that hangs over the department. That means keeping LAPD officials on course to implement the reforms mandated under the decree on the use of force, citizens' complaints, and discipline. LAPD Chief William Bratton has done much to implement the reforms, but much more still needs to be done. Black and Latino leaders will be watching Villaraigosa closely to see that he doesn't stumble on this issue.

On the education front, fellow mayoral candidate Robert Hertzberg seized the initiative on the schools during the primary campaign by advocating the breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District. There was nothing new about the proposal - school district breakup has been proposed countless times in the past. But coming from a mayoral candidate, it looked and sounded like a fresh approach to improve L.A.'s sub-par inner-city schools. The plan got Hertzberg greater local name recognition, took him out of the single-digit column and made him a serious contender.

Moral of the story: Voters rank education as their No. 1 concern.

The mayor has no direct control over school policies, but Villaraigosa has a voice and resources, and he will need to use both. He can do what Richard Riordan did and turn the mayor's post into a bully pulpit to demand that school officials get tough on bureaucratic inertia, waste and mismanagement. He can call for increased and improved teacher training, texts and equipment, as well as turning over greater decision-making power to local schools. He can also aggressively lobby Sacramento to increase funding, and push proposals for greater teacher accountability.

As for bolstering accountability in City Hall, this battle must be waged on two fronts.

First is reaching out to the San Fernando Valley, where residents widely believe that L.A.'s politicians still treat their community like an unloved stepchild when it comes to delivering on services. To change that perception, Villaraigosa will have to do much more than stage photo-ops with Valley leaders and make the same tired promises of his predecessor. That means pushing hard for greater funding, control and decision-making power for neighborhood councils, while doing everything he can to improve police, fire and street services in the Valley.

The second part of restoring City Hall's credibility is curbing the sleaze factor. The ``pay to play'' ethics scandal dogged Hahn through much of his term, and ultimately helped to seal his doom. Villaraigosa can avoid that same fate with a little bit of integrity and discipline - appointing the best and most talented people to his staff, commissions, and as city department heads, not merely the best and biggest campaign contributors.

More than anything else, the rage of many L.A. voters at Hahn for his colossal failures catapulted Villaraigosa into City Hall. But that rage won't sustain him, and, if he doesn't become the tough and visionary mayor he promised to be, he, too, could wind up as a one-term mayor.

Your opportunity has arrived. Don't stumble, Antonio!

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

(color) Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa celebrates his victory with supporters on election night Tuesday.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer