The pragmatic politician.

The pragmatic politician After rising from City Hall stenographer to city councilwoman, Joan Milke Flores is building a solid record of performance on issues and problems, establishing a reputation for substance rather than style and image

Having survived a decade of political gymnastics as a Los Angeles city councilwoman, Joan Milke Flores still isn't sure if she is an outsider looking in or an insider twisting for an outside view.

As the sole woman Republican on the City Council, she toils in a chamber dominated by male Democrats. Yet the 54-year-old Flores is no ivory-tower politician or ideological watchdog. She scaled Los Angeles' labyrinthian bureaucracy by being part of it for nearly 25 years.

"I don't know if I am a political insider, but I do know the system, the movers and shakers," the San Pedro resident explains with a controlled intensity.

Lacking the booming oratorical prowess of some council members, or the truculent persona of others, Flores instead is a steady, thoughtful lawmaker, a study in substance over form, observers say. Her consensus-building savvy - not one-upmanship skills - comes through, as does her love affair with Jeffersonian democracy.

That's not to say Flores isn't a promoter of big ideas, even with her affinity for "down-and-dirty" zoning laws and community centers. She calls her management style "hands on," though she doesn't check who's playing on the government tennis courts, like President Jimmy Carter was reported to have done on federal courts. And she's not one for legislative bombshells.

"I hate surprises. If I'm in council and someone mentions something they knew before but omitted, I am tempted to vote against it, though I can't." Asked if she is a control freak, Flores pauses and blurts, "No, I don't think so."

Unlike some of her legislative contemporaries, the woman from Sheboygan Falls, Wis. - yes, Sheboygan Falls - doesn't visibly tote grudges in her political baggage.

Her defeat to California Secretary of State March Fong Eu last November - despite a well-orchestrated campaign that took some mystery out of the watchdog post - has not left Flores bitter. Maybe with good reason.

She got 3 million votes, caught Gov. Pete Wilson's eye and gave Eu a run for her re-election money. Not bad for a former city secretary who became the council's first freshman president pro tempore.

"I can't pinpoint why I lost but we did get some changes in the way the secretary of state operates," Flores says with quiet confidence. "I can't think of it as a loss."

When she and Mayor Tom Bradley squared off over the politics of drought last year, Flores, as chair of the council's Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources panel, did little of the wild-eyed finger-pointing that mocks the city's laid-back image. She favored a voluntary water-conservation plan over mandatory cuts. Now the woman who quietly helped negotiate an end to the noisy L.A.-Inyo County water wars agrees that cutbacks are needed.

"Sometimes politicians have a hard time changing their minds because they don't want to get a reputation that they flip-flopped. I try to analyze situations and it doesn't bother me to change my mind."

Abetted by the council's non-partisan status, Flores maintains that she is neither council chameleon nor political paradox. It's all right for her to be simultaneously angered about utility taxes on industry and some companies' poor record-handling on hazardous waste. In an age of smoke and mirror politics, Flores' supporters say she is issues-driven.

"She is the kind of candidate where you have something to say about her record" rather than an image, says political consultant Ray McNally. "She is the real McCoy and that's rare these days."

What does that say about a woman who forsakes television for crossword puzzles and crime stories, who'd rather walk three miles a day than attend social functions?

"Cynicism isn't what is used to be" is one of her favorite maxims. She says anti-incumbent fervor is "nothing new" to politics and that investigations into state Sen. Paul Carpenter, the "Keating Five" and Tom Bradley have only added an "I told you so" component to public skepticism.

"Fact is that people don't really know the City Council as people. I try to be a pretty straightforward, upbeat person. I'm sort of fatalistic. But it's a sad commentary that you have to go overboard so people aren't suspicious."

The product of a blue-collar family, Flores was a bookish girl, with an interest in law and logic. After moving to Los Angeles with her family, she wed Sam Flores, who later became a Los Angeles police officer. Still a teenager, Flores took a job as a stenographer in the L.A. City Clerk's office. She didn't stay long, moving to the office of then-Council President John Gibson, where she remained for 25 years, the last 13 as his chief deupty.

With Gibson's blessing, Flores in 1981 won a narrow victory over Los Angeles School Board Member John Greenwood, capping a story that could be a rags-to-riches television movie. It was a bittersweet triumph though, with her father, a former welder, dying the week before. (Flores was divorced years ago and has a daughter, Valerie, who is a Los Angeles attorney.)

If she has a signature theme, it is government accountability. With little fanfare last August, Flores successfully defended a Los Angeles law she authored ensuring advance-notice and public input at council meetings after the state waived the requirement. She also lobbied hard for "Council Vision," the city's equivalent of C-SPAN that rolls the chamber's political histrionics and torpor into one televised package.

Quips Council President John Ferraro, "The rules of the council are very important to her. When she doesn't think I'm following the rules, she points it out."

Flores is also possessive about the computer system that helps her communicate with her four council offices, the most of any member, though she rapidly conceded she is a hardware-software buff.

Her 225,000-person district, shaped like a legless pelican, stretches from blue-collar neighborhoods of San Pedro to industrial Wilmington to the mean mean streets of Watts. That "peninsulization," Flores has learned, has its own social and economic dynamics. Because of that, she has her D.I.D. day - her day in the district - where she walks the precincts like a hungry candidate.

"I like to walk into a shop and just say `Hi.' Sometimes the people are amazed. They think I want a campaign contribution." These days Flores could use the money, since she's still about $300,000 in debt from her battle to unseat Eu.

On the subject of Watts, Flores calls it a "still-distressed area," 25 years after its riots mirrored a nation at war with itself. But mistaking Watts with South Central Los Angeles, or generalizing about the extent of blight, raises her hackles. The problem, to hear her tell it, is the lack of commerce and government's inability to alleviate disenchantment.

But Flores is bullish on Watts' urban renewal plan, despite lingering community fears of gentrification. A shopping center she helped bring there five years ago is still a point of pride.

"There are gangs and crime and problems with housing projects there. But it is not the war zone people say it is. When I took some of colleagues on a tour of Charcoal Alley some years back, they saw that it wasn't just a bunch of burned-out buildings."

While Flores is now in her third term as the 15th district's first female council member, the last several years have seen her come into her own, some say. She helped fund a $2.5 million Wilmington library, coordinated a $4.3 million street light program in Harbor City and successfully won council approval for a moratorium on residential growth in San Pedro to preserve single-family neighborhoods. That restriction on new development and population growth has become a model for communities across California.

In one of her boldest political moves, the veteran lawmaker recently took Bradley head on when she successfully got on the June ballot a measure allowing the council to remove mayoral-appointed commissioners from civilian boards.

Concludes Leron Gubler, president of the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce, "Generally, most residents seem satisfied with her. She is a capable councilwoman with an extensive knowledge of City Hall."

Flores gets most animated when she speaks of the Alameda Corridor, an ambitious $500 million highway that will connect Los Angeles' two ports with railroad yards in downtown Los Angeles by 1997.

"I see big potential of the corridor in terms of traffic and economic growth. But it's not something that will go down in the history books," she says.

That's typical. Flores admits she keeps a relatively low media profile. As with the Alameda Corridor, little ink was spilled over Flores' legislation creating the Department of Environmental Affairs or her energy action plan for Los Angeles. Indeed, her staff shows little sign of the press-release-happy mentality of other district offices.

While provocative is hardly the word to characterize Flores, she has received her share of brick bats. She was criticized for taking a $275,000 loan from Ernest Papadakis, a longtime friend and owner of a liquor store chain, during her statewide race. She was also politely assailed by some in San Pedro for leaning too heavily on community advisory groups. Some residents have raised questions about what they see as her pro-development, pro-business stand and her lack of visibility.

"I don't know that people know her that well," says Gertrude Schwab, president of Wilmington North Neighborhood Association. "Flores has got a difficult job but she needs to speak up more."

Flores knows such talk is part of the territory. "If you don't get criticized in this job, then you must be dead. But I love the issues and the problem-solving."

What she doesn't love is officials bending with political tradewinds. "I really have a problem when council members vote for something they don't believe in, like rent control for example."

As to the future, she says, "A good politician never closes the door. Never say never."