Mayor

WATCH: Garcetti video interview | Greuel video interview In advance of the May 21 runoff election, we collected questions from voters for the mayoral candidates to answer. The questions covered a range of topics: neighborhood revitalization, small business, immigration, education, public transit and making the city more pedestrian-friendly. We invited mayoral candidates Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel to our video studio for separate on-camera interviews. Jim Newton, editor-at-large and columnist for the opinion pages, and Times political reporter James Rainey hosted the interviews, playing video questions for the candidates to answer and asking questions of their own. Each video interview is about 30 minutes -- though you can watch shorter clips of individual questions and answers too. That's a bit longer than the usual Web video you see on the Los Angeles Times website, but we wanted readers (er, viewers)

Eric Garcetti talked about how he has led on pension reform and would like to bring “geek chic” to L.A., so engineers educated in the city would stay to build tech jobs. Wendy Greuel touted her recent endorsement from President Clinton and how she is a strong leader, not a flashy campaigner. The two candidates for mayor of Los Angeles made robust cases for themselves in a televised debate Monday night from the USC Health Sciences Campus east of downtown, but they became most passionate when they squared off, again, on the question of who would be the most independent leader.

Heading for the exit at City Hall, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday proposed to cancel the last installment of the pay raises that he and the City Council granted thousands of city workers in late 2007. The raises, which totaled 25% over five years, contributed to a succession of budget shortfalls that forced the city to furlough workers and cut public services. Although Villaraigosa and the council persuaded city unions to delay some of the raises, Monday's budget was the first to propose that any of the increase be rescinded.

If could pose a question to the remaining two candidates for Los Angeles mayor, what would it be? How to improve education? How to break the city's transportation gridlock? Or maybe something about the backlog of broken city sidewalks? Several Los Angeles voters recently got that opportunity as part of separate Times video interviews with City Councilman Eric Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel . WATCH:   Garcetti video interview  |  Greuel video interview The sessions appear today, jointly anchored by Times political reporter James Rainey and Times Editor at Large Jim Newton, who writes an opinion column.

Los Angeles' mayoral race has kicked into full gear in recent days, with new polls, ads, debates and a weekend appearance by a former president at a pastrami landmark. Eric Garcetti leads Wendy Greuel by 10 points among likely voters in a new poll by the Los Angeles Times and the University of Southern California. The two candidates sparred over each others' integrity in a debate on Spanish-language television, and will meet in another face-off Monday night. Greuel launched an ad attacking Garcetti.

As he mounted his bike for the CicLAvia ride to the beach Sunday, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took the occasion to remind residents that the city had installed 148 miles of new bike lanes during his two terms. It is part of a wider plan to make the city less dependent on cars, Villaraigosa said. “It's not a walkable city yet, but it's becoming a walkable city,” he said. Villaraigosa joined thousands of bike riders Sunday morning to enjoy a rare car-free stretch of Los Angeles streets from downtown to Venice Beach as part of the increasingly popular CicLAvia event.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will join tens of thousands of Angelenos in participating in the sixth CicLAvia, which will open up several car-free streets Sunday to cyclists, rollerbladers and thousands more on foot. Villaraigosa and other city leaders will gather in front of downtown's La Placita Church at 9:30 a.m. to help launch CicLAvia, said Ashley Rodgers, spokeswoman for the event. Villaraigosa is expected to ride his bike the entire length of the 15-mile route -- the longest ever -- running from downtown to Venice Beach, Rodgers said.

Despite stubborn financial problems and reductions in city services, a majority of L.A. voters give departing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa good marks, a USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll has found. In a telephone survey conducted last week, nearly 53% of respondents said they had a favorable view of the mayor, who was barred by law from seeking a third four-year term. He leaves office this summer. Nearly 42% of voters said they viewed Villaraigosa unfavorably. Whites were about evenly split -- 46.3% viewed the city's first Latino mayor in modern history favorably; 46.9% had an unfavorable view.

Record spending will continue in the last remaining race for a seat on the Los Angeles school board, as a political action committee has put together a war chest of about $600,000 to use on behalf of a candidate endorsed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In all, the Coalition for School Reform, which is spearheaded by the mayor, has raised nearly $4.5 million for three Board of Education races to support candidates who would back the aggressive policies of Supt. John Deasy and pledge to keep him on the job. Contributors praise Deasy for including student test scores in teacher evaluations and limiting job protections that they view as impediments to academic progress.

Eric Garcetti has opened a commanding 10-point lead in the Los Angeles mayor's race over rival Wendy Greuel, whose dogged fight to win the backing of public employee unions appears to be undercutting her on her home turf in the San Fernando Valley, according to a new USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll. A month before the May 21 runoff, likely voters favored Garcetti over Greuel by 50% to 40%. The survey also found no sign of success for Greuel's effort to gain an edge among women by highlighting her potential to make history as the city's first female mayor.