Old Business-Labor Alliance Reemerges

Los Angeles City Council members grabbed the attention during the downtown sports arena debate Wednesday, but the most interesting people in the room were three women and a man unaffiliated with the governing body.

The man, a quiet, bearded fellow, was attorney-lobbyist George Mihlsten, who steered the plan through a fractious council on behalf of the owners of the Kings hockey team, which would share the arena with the Lakers.

Just as involved, and just as important, were the women--Carol Schatz, president of the Central City Assn., which represents downtown business; and Stephanie Bradfield, who lobbies for the pro-business Riordan administration in the City Council, and Maria Elena Durazo, president of Local 11 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union.

What made this quartet so significant was that it represented a reuniting, after a period of estrangement, of the pro-growth alliance of big business and labor that dominated Los Angeles politics and policymaking through the long reign of Mayor Tom Bradley. It crumpled with the election of rich businessman Riordan as mayor, and collapsed altogether during his subsequent battles with unions.

The prospect of jobs created by the arena reunited these foes. The business community hopes to fill a long-declining downtown with more restaurants, shops, hotels and theaters to attract reluctant suburbanites who haven’t ventured into the area for years. Arena boosters think a new sports palace will ignite a downtown boom. The unions want jobs.

Their reconciliation set up Wednesday’s 13-2 vote for a project that even some supporters conceded was economically risky and unpopular with large segments of the electorate.

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The mood in the council chamber was relaxed as the debate began, with none of the feeling of anticipation and tension that usually proceeds a big vote.

The votes for the arena had pretty much been lined up beforehand. Councilman Joel Wachs who, with colleague Nate Holden, opposed the measure, knew he had lost. Even before the vote, he expressed disappointment with the result.

But even so, Bradfield was worried. I could understand why. Mayor Richard Riordan is wildly unpopular with the council and nothing gives the lawmakers more pleasure than to vote against him. As a result, Riordan has a win-loss record comparable to that of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Assn. (14 wins, 21 losses).

“Everyone says you’re going to win,” I said, trying to cheer her up. You never can tell, she replied, refusing to allow herself the luxury of optimism.

Unable to cheer up Bradfield, I sat down next to her ally, the Central City Assn.’s Schatz. She is the first woman president of a group that was once as much a guys’ bastion as the fabled old downtown California and Jonathan clubs.

Schatz usually conducts herself with the confidence of a woman who has overcome the Old Boys Network, but I found her as nervous as Bradfield. She, too, assured me that the outcome was in doubt.

Over on the side of the room, lobbyist Mihlsten was at his usual post, the velvet rope that separates the audience from the council.

Council members had tough questions for him. What was the city’s real obligation? What would happen if the Lakers and / or the Kings moved? What if the developers went bankrupt?

Mihlsten had an answer for all of them, passing them pieces of paper with analyses of the complex funding of the project.

Nearby, the hotel workers’ leader Durazo watched quietly, occasionally chatting with some of her associates. It was Durazo and her colleagues from other unions who would deliver the biggest bloc of support for the arena on the liberal council.

All she could do now was wait for the vote.

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Victory attained, Durazo left the chamber, but for her, the job is far from completed.

“The developers have a responsibility to make sure they have good-quality unionized jobs,” she said.

In other words, she figures she has an understanding--union support for the arena in return for union jobs and union pay and working conditions.

Maria Elena Durazo may have been pleasant and upbeat when she walked out of the council, but I wouldn’t advise double-crossing her on the deal.