Mayors

During separate video interviews with the Los Angeles Times last month, candidates for L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel responded to questions from individual voters. Among them is Alissa Walker of Silver Lake, who asked: What do the candidates plan to do about L.A.'s crumbling sidewalks? Walker, a pedestrian advocate, adds that L.A.'s streets are too wide, and "there are far too many" pedestrian collisions on city streets. Here's the video of what Garcetti had to say to Walker.

During separate video interviews with the Los Angeles Times last month, candidates for L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel responded to questions from individual voters. Among them is Kim Jones of Silver Lake, who asked: What would you do differently than Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in working with the schools? Jones, a middle school teacher, wondered if the candidates would try to take control of the board. “What do you think the relationship between city government and the Los Angeles Unified School District should be?

A two-year campaign that has drawn record spending will see either the first woman or the first Jew elected as Los Angeles mayor. But despite those milestones, candidates Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti sped around the city Sunday trying to avoid another distinction: drawing the lowest turnout for an open mayoral seat in modern history. The two candidates reached out to voters in churches, at a pizza parlor and in a bowling alley on a long day of campaigning - their last extended opportunity to connect directly to voters before Tuesday's election.

It's a small swath of Los Angeles, near the city's heart, that hasn't received much attention from the mayoral candidates. But a Times analysis shows that a 2.8-square-mile, Mid-Wilshire neighborhood has had an unmatched record of picking mayors in both primary and runoff elections since 2001. And interviews suggest it could again be a bellwether of the concerns, apathy and ambivalence voters take to the polls Tuesday as they choose the city's new chief executive. Both Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti have supporters here, though most voters approached on a recent day voiced the sort of indifference that could keep turnout near record lows.

Eric Garcetti outspent Wendy Greuel on the airwaves, in voter outreach and other campaign efforts in the closing days of the mayoral contest, with outlays of $2.7 million to Greuel's $426,000, according to campaign reports filed late Friday with the city's ethics commission. FULL COVERAGE: L.A.'s race for mayor Garcetti reported raising $635,238 between May 5 and Wednesday, and having $234,079 cash on hand and $277,157 in debt. Greuel , in comparison, reported raising $396,524 in the same time period, leaving her with $295,438 cash on hand and $582,038 in debt, according to campaign filings.

During eight years in office, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa staked much of his legacy on transportation. He lobbied Washington for millions of dollars in federal funding. He oversaw the addition of 150 miles of bike lanes. And, five years ago, he won voter approval of Measure R, the countywide half-cent sales tax expected to raise more than $30 billion over 30 years for a dozen new transportation projects. The challenge for the next mayor, experts say, will be the nuts and bolts: repaving the city's broken streets and sidewalks, completing a surge of bus and rail projects and securing more transportation funding.

Eric Garcetti's lead in the Los Angeles mayor's race has narrowed to seven percentage points, but his strength among conservatives has blocked rival Wendy Greuel from securing a San Fernando Valley base that is vital to her chances, according to a new USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll. As the candidates and their partisans swarmed across the city in advance of Tuesday's runoff election, Garcetti, a city councilman from Silver Lake, held a 48% to 41% lead, the survey found. Voters in the Valley and every other key region of Los Angeles favored him over Greuel, the city controller.

More than 2 million people are eligible to vote for mayor of Los Angeles. But if history is a reliable guide, as many as 1.6 million of them, that's about 80%, will skip Tuesday's election. That low turnout could mean the winner will garner fewer votes than any newly elected mayor since the pre-freeway era of the 1930s, according to a Times analysis of L.A. election records. Join us at 9 a.m. when we discuss L.A.'s history of low voter turnout and what it means for the mayor's race with Times reporters Ben Welsh and Michael Finnegan.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa waded into the increasingly negative campaign for mayor, calling for the removal of two ads that attack mayoral candidates Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel but were not created by either candidate's campaign. Appearing at a news conference focused on reform of the Los Angeles Police Department, Villaraigosa criticized a new TV ad from the independent expenditure group Lots of People Who Support Eric Garcetti, saying it wrongly described Greuel as a supporter of Proposition 187. That 1994 ballot measure sought to deny illegal immigrants access to public education and other services.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday waded into the heated contest to choose his successor, calling for two ads aimed at Latino voters that attack candidates Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel to be taken off the airwaves. Both were financed with independent donations not controlled by the candidates. Villaraigosa, who has not made an endorsement in the race, said a TV ad from the super PAC Lots of People Who Support Eric Garcetti falsely portrayed Greuel as a supporter of Proposition 187, the 1994 state ballot measure that sought to deny illegal immigrants access to public education and other services.