Richard Riordan

RICHARD Riordan is no gourmet. That's one of the first things he wants you to know. But he is a restaurateur, and a very successful one. In fact, though the 78-year-old Riordan is best known as the multimillionaire former mayor of Los Angeles, he also owns two of the busiest restaurants in Southern California, the Original Pantry and Gladstone's Malibu.

He has never been elected to public office and he holds no official title in state government. But UCLA management professor William G. Ouchi is emerging as a pivotal figure in the future of California public education. Ouchi has teamed up with his golfing buddy and former City Hall boss, state Education Secretary Richard Riordan, in a quest to reinvent the state's 8,000 schools. Riordan is the official face of this two-man offensive, the connection to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If you're looking for the stuff of instant political symbolism, those 250 Styrofoam containers are a good place to start. Brimming with scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes and biscuits, they were delivered to City Hall's underground emergency operations center three hours after the Northridge earthquake struck on Jan. 17, 1994. The hungry workers' benefactor?

Eleven years ago, Robin Kramer and I were part of a delegation that accompanied then-Mayor Richard Riordan on a trip through the Far East, she as his chief of staff, I as a reporter. One afternoon, we were stuck in a conference room in Beijing, surrounded by a cluster of scrambling mayoral aides and business people. They were frenetically preparing for a meeting, but nevertheless found the time to fret about a story of mine in that day's paper. In it, I recounted how the mayor had muffed the introduction of a Chinese official the night before.

President Clinton came to the Valley and endorsed Michael Woo for mayor. The state Democratic Party had previously endorsed him. My voting record and my political and social activism reveal that I am a moderate-to-liberal Democrat. So why am I supporting Richard Riordan? Because Los Angeles needs a mayor who is willing to make the tough decisions. The post-riot Webster Commission concluded that Los Angeles is a dysfunctional city. We face a budget deficit of as much as $500 million.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan may be the man to beat among Republicans vying to be governor. But Secretary of State Bill Jones and businessman Bill Simon Jr. aren't ready to accept that. All three appeared Saturday before volunteers from the California Federation of Republican Women, with Jones pointing out that Riordan has contributed to a "virtual who's who of liberal candidates" in the last two decades. The accusation drew groans from many in the crowd.

Five weeks before election day, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan holds a double-digit lead over his top rivals in the GOP gubernatorial primary and runs even with Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in a prospective fall matchup, according to a Los Angeles Times poll. Republican Bill Simon Jr. seems poised to emerge as the conservative alternative to the centrist Riordan, running ahead of Secretary of State Bill Jones, and could do particularly well if voter turnout is low.

Mayor Riordan's popularity throughout the city was earned honestly by his performance in the aftermath of the earthquake and by the hard work, intelligence and flexibility he has shown in the job ever since. He is receiving kudos on all sides, even from liberals like myself who feared his victory.

Richard J. Riordan is spending $3 million of his $100-million fortune to sell himself as a political outsider who is "tough enough to turn L.A. around." As evidence, the lawyer-businessman cites accomplishments like his 1980s rescue of the insolvent Mattel Inc. Rivals argue that saving a toy company is a far cry from saving a city. They also scoff at his portrayal of himself as an outsider.

We were content to wait on the sidelines for an interview with Mayor Richard Riordan after his ice-skating lesson. Then His Honor invited us to take a twirl on the ice. We declined because a pratfall was in the offing. After demurring, we were properly shod and tugged onto the ice, whereupon the mayor and ice-skating instructor Gary C. Visconti escorted us around an endless rink. Afterward, we settled onto safer ground.