Debate Puts Hahn on Hot Seat

Seated on stage at the Museum of Tolerance in West Los Angeles, the mayor used the one-hour televised event to highlight what he called his impressive record of making Los Angeles a safer city with the help of the police chief he hired.

"Results are clear. Crime is down," the mayor said as he repeatedly linked himself to Chief William J. Bratton and repeated his call for a sales tax increase next year to expand the Police Department. "We're going to keep moving in that direction because that's what the people of this city want."

But Hahn's rivals -- state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley), former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, and Councilmen Bernard C. Parks and Antonio Villaraigosa -- brushed past the mayor's claims as they sought to portray the reserved former city attorney as a lackluster leader who has allowed corruption to thrive in his administration.

"I believe in Los Angeles, and I believe in its future, but under Mayor Hahn, our city is paralyzed by scandal," said Villaraigosa, whom Hahn defeated in the 2001 mayoral election. "We are a city adrift. And it's time for a change."

At the same time, Hahn's four opponents jostled to differentiate themselves with an array of proposals that included breaking up the Los Angeles Unified School District and a ballot initiative to ban campaign contributions from city contractors and developers.

The five candidates, veteran politicians with significant financial backing, answered questions from three journalists as they sat at a long table before an invited audience and viewers who tuned in on KNBC-TV Channel 4 in English and KWHY-TV Channel 22 in Spanish.

Fifteen less prominent candidates were not invited to the debate.

The sometimes testy exchanges among the major candidates provided an early indication of the strikingly different approach Hahn and his challengers will take to define the race in the months leading up to the March 8 election.

Hahn is the son of one of Los Angeles' most beloved politicians, the late county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, and has never lost an election. And although he is under siege from well-funded opponents and criminal investigations into city contracting, Hahn has made it clear that he is confident voters will reward him for hiring Bratton and presiding over an 18% drop in violent crime over the last two years.