THE TWO GUYS WHO REALLY RUN L.A. : IS THIS TOWN BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH?

Byline: Dennis Love and Rick Orlov Daily News Staff Writers

They are the Mr. Inside and the Mr. Outside of Los Angeles politics.

Mr. Inside operates from within the hollow bunker of City Hall, exacting his influence in the shadowy warren of offices and hallways that reek of retrofit dust and insular, generations-old power.

Mr. Outside, while no stranger to City Hall, prefers to sit in judgment from afar, machinating among those who seek to reallocate that power - power they claim is rightfully theirs.

These two are the most powerful people in Los Angeles you've never heard of.

Many argue they are the most powerful people in Los Angeles, period.

And while their paths rarely cross - they've had exactly one brief conversation of substance - they are widely acknowledged as the generals who sit at opposing ends of the sophisticated, high-stakes war games that consume L.A. city politics.

Meet Mr. Inside: Ron Deaton, 53, chief legislative analyst for the Los Angeles City Council, a man who for 32 years has watched mayors and councils and movers and shakers and every would-be muck-a-muck in the city come and go and whose mission, year in and year out, is to plot council strategy and see to it that the council gets its way.

Meet Mr. Outside: Bill Wardlaw, 50, millionaire venture capitalist and attorney, ``the shadow mayor,'' kingmaker, Lincoln Bedroom guest and best friend to Richard Riordan, the city's mayor who shares Wardlaw's fire-and-brimstone contention that for this scattershot, complicated, wildly disparate and randomly dysfunctional metropolis to survive, authority must be bludgeoned out of the City Council and awarded to an accountable, decisive, can-do mayor.

Wardlaw sees Deaton as the enabler who maintains the council's chokehold on progress.

Deaton sees Wardlaw as boss jackal in a blatant power grab that threatens to destroy city government's system of checks and balances.

Neither, ironically, resides in the city he rules. Deaton lives in Seal Beach in Orange County, Wardlaw in Pasadena.

Both have a deep passion for politics and all its intricacies. Both have generated respect and fear among those who work with and for them. Both use humor to deflect any introspection. And both are supremely self-confident - even arrogant - with stubborn streaks and a love for arguing the issues.

``Ron Deaton may be more powerful than the mayor,'' said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who knows both men well.

``Deaton is one of the most influential people in city government, not because of his position but because of his own individual talents. The perception is if Deaton says no to something, the council will balk. If Deaton says yes, it's given a green light.

``Wardlaw has great geopolitical skills. He is able to bring together and assimilate in his own mind the pieces of a political puzzle to make something happen. And, undoubtedly, he has the mayor's confidence more than any other single individual I know.''

Deaton and Wardlaw travel in different yet parallel universes, their pursuits separate yet inextricably intertwined. And neither seems to think overly warm and fuzzy thoughts about the other.

``We've spoken maybe 50 words to one another, and that's being generous,'' Wardlaw said. ``We probably have different views of the world. It's probably better this way. Sometimes, you just know.''

Mr. Inside

Ron Deaton said his job is simple.

``A subject will come up and we'll look at it,'' he said, shrugging. ``We'll work out the details.''

At first blush, Deaton - balding, bespectacled, with the prisonlike pallor of one who spends his days bathed in the dim fluorescent lighting of municipaldom - looks like a details man.

Yet there is devilment within those details, of course. Despite his protestations that he is but the council's humble instrument, Deaton has time and again demonstrated his grasp of the big picture and Nhis ability to transmute his opinions into council action.

In a strong-council, weak-mayor system like L.A.'s, that is no small matter. In a term-limits world, the Deatons stand in the lobby, jingling the change in their pockets as the elected saps are devoured by the revolving door.

The significance of that is hardly lost on Deaton or anyone else. ``My son told me, `I'm not going to vote for term limits, Dad. I'm not gonna let you bureaucrats run the state,' '' he said, laughing.

Who's laughing now? Last year, Deaton's backstage chess moves were instrumental in launching a campaign to kill a bill introduced in the state Legislature by Paula Boland which would provide secessionary power to the San Fernando Valley.

Acting without formal council direction, Deaton issued a bitingly negative report on the bill and directed the city's lobbyists in Sacramento to energetically battle the proposal.

Aware of potential fallout from his autonomous actions, he covered his tracks by pointing to a 1994 council resolution that generally opposed any change in state law to make secession less difficult. By the time the council voted 8-6 to oppose the bill, Deaton's objections had played a major role in the decision.

Asked to name his ``highest high'' professionally, Deaton offered, ``Beating the Boland bill? Nah, that was never in doubt,'' adding a smile as if he is joking. And he is joking, isn't he?

Deaton's impending challenge is charter reform, the political conflict du jour. Wardlaw, Riordan and allies alligator-wrestled a charter reform initiative onto the April 8 ballot despite numerous Deaton-generated obstacles, including a federal court challenge.

It passed, and now an elected charter commission - as well as a pre-existing, council-appointed commission - will spend two years exploring ways to make Los Angeles more manageable. But Deaton's influence will be felt on both commissions, as a majority of seats in the elected commission were backed by the council and the publicN employee unions, both his constituencies.

Some - any guesses? - have suggested that nothing less than an emasculation of the City Council is in order during the course of charter reform.

Predictably, Deaton - chainmail-bedecked astride the council's white charger - disagrees with those who see the city's governing body as fiefdom-obsessed obstructionists interested only in retaining power.

``This is a government closer to the people,'' he said. ``If you think of an Old West city, they've got a marshal and a schoolhouse and a volunteer fire department, police powers and land use. These issues are not ones that I think are executive decisions. I want the police chief to have responsibility to the citizens.

``I think the chief executive should have the responsibility to come to the council to say this person should be fired and the reasons for it. I'm not saying the general manager of a department should have property rights to his or her job . . . (but) it has to do with fairness. If the librarian serves all the people, then one person shouldn't have the ability to fire that librarian.''

Deaton argues that in most cities mayors are ``figureheads,'' and that ``unilateral decision making isn't going to solve the problem.'' He blames budget restrictions and indirectly chastises Riordan - and, by extension, Wardlaw - by fondly recalling the 20-year reign of Mayor Tom Bradley.

``There is a difference in politics from the Bradley era,'' Deaton said. ``For one thing, Bradley had been a council member. He knew how the council worked. He knew how City Hall worked. He had been a police officer for 20 years. When he left office he had been a public employee for the city of Los Angeles for half a century.

``He worked very closely with council members. He put his agenda and their agenda simultaneously at the top of the list. If a leader cannot build consensus in a governmental setting, they cannot lead and they cannot accomplish their agenda.''

Deaton's implication is clear: RiordNan isn't a consensus builder; in a council age where its 15 members are fragmented and coalition-resistant, the only legitimate consensus-builder is Mr. Inside himself, a $175,000-a-year political junkie-wonk who lives in Orange County.

(He certainly isn't implying that Wardlaw is a consensus-builder. Deaton aloofly dismisses Wardlaw as ``a good friend of the mayor. . . . He's involved in some fashion on different decisions on different levels. It's kind of hard to ascertain since he's not a person you talk to very much.'')

``When I call a department or when I call a person in the City Attorney's Office, they know exactly who Ron Deaton is,'' Deaton said. ``They don't have to think about it. They may not like it, they may love it, they may hate it, but they know who it is.

``The view I have is that when I walk into a room, I am the city of Los Angeles.''

Mr. Outside

Wardlaw is standing in front of his picture window that occupies the entire east wall of his corner office on the 19th floor of a West Los Angeles high-rise where he is a partner in the investment banking firm of Freeman, Spogli Inc., a firm founded by Riordan.

The view sweeps across the Westside, past the downtown skyline toward the San Bernandino Mountains. From Wardlaw's vantage point, the city seems to be at his feet, about knee-high. It more resembles a precise model than the real thing, looking as if you could reach down and tinker with it, take it apart and put it back together again.

``But you can't see City Hall,'' Wardlaw said, not without irony. ``It's blocked a little bit.''

A little blockage is hardly unusual in politics. But Wardlaw - whose loyalty to Riordan is legendary and apparently without bounds - has taken it upon himself to become a one-man jackhammer operator, to reduce the present system to rubble. His primary obstacles: the City Council and, of course, that rascal Deaton.

``Why is there such a mess? I think City Council's the mess,'' Wardlaw said. ``Way too much power.N We have a form of government that doesn't allow for accountability, period. The people don't understand who's responsible for what goes on down there. It's that lack of accountability that leads to the frustration seen out in the San Fernando Valley.

``I encouraged Dick Riordan to run for mayor because we were at a point in 1993 where I thought we had to do something really different if this city was going to change. I thought Dick Riordan was the person to do that.''

It wasn't easy. Riordan had never run for office in his life. Wardlaw knew how to orchestrate a campaign: He ran Jerry Brown's unsuccessful 1976 presidential bid, managed the effort that re-elected U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston in 1980, and was in charge of President Clinton's 1992 California campaign. But this. . . .

``When we started, everybody said, `You are the stupidest S.O.B. I can think of. You're gonna make Dick Riordan mayor of this town? A rich, white Republican male? You are just stupid.' To go through that - the first poll showed him with 3 percent name recognition - and to win it . . . aside from my wife and seeing my kids born, it was the greatest moment ever.''

By Wardlaw's reckoning, Riordan has been an outstanding mayor. Helped in part by an excellent relationship with Clinton - facilitated by Wardlaw, whose wife, Kim, arranged Riordan's first visit to the White House - the mayor secured heaps of federal money to assist in earthquake recovery and an expansion of the LAPD.

But the Riordan-Wardlaw master plan to run a sputtering and unwieldy city government like an efficient corporation often was blindsided by the territorial imperatives of the council, who viewed the mayor as insensitive to the political realities of a big city.

Detectable throughout, to Wardlaw's eye: the glove of Deaton.

``From where Mr. Deaton sits, he may have his perspective, but I've rarely thought it was correct, and I don't think it's correct now,'' Wardlaw said.

``Inside that little building, from what I've observed,N he operates quite well. When having to deal with the real world outside, it's a different matter. Inside that little building he does a good job of trying to maintain the prerogatives of the City Council. One can question whether that's in the best interests of the city. I happen to think most times that it's not.

``But his job is not to do what's right. His job is to do what he perceives as in the best interests of the City Council.''

Wardlaw is rolling now, racheting himself up, looking around for a Bible to thump: ``But for Dick Riordan, we wouldn't have the largest police force in the history of the city. But for Dick Riordan we wouldn't have attracted the new jobs we have to the city. But for Dick Riordan we wouldn't have a more responsive government.''

His voice drops to a near whisper: ``Mr. Deaton doesn't know how to do those things.''

Wardlaw waves aside the notion that he would tamper with the integrity of city government in the name of charter reform.

``Everybody believes there should be checks and balances in city government. But we have a system that allows such a diffusion of power that the voters don't often understand why things are screwed up. What we need is a system that clearly delineates the power between branches of government and gives substantially more power to the executive branch.''

It will happen, Wardlaw fervently attests. ``The council fought to keep this off the ballot. They have lost at every step. And after the outstanding work done by these (charter commissioners), they'll probably lose again.''

With this, Wardlaw smiles a wicked smile.

``And then Mr. Deaton can retire.''

One man who wants to reinvent Los Angeles. Another man who fancies himself the city incarnate. We could be here awhile.

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Ron Deaton

City Council's chief legislative analyst

(2--color) Bill Wardlaw

Confidante to Mayor Richard Riordan

(3--color) no caption (Los Angeles City Hall)

(4) ``The view I have is that wheNn I walk into a room, I am the city of Los Angeles.

- Ron Deaton

City Council's chief legislative analyst

(5) ``Why is there such a mess? I think City Council's the mess. Way too much power.

- Bill Wardlaw

Confidante to Mayor Richard Riordan