Add Robert Hertzberg, the former state Assembly Speaker, to the list of candidates who will be running against Mayor Jim Hahn for the next year. Hertzberg is a moderate to liberal Democrat who grew up on the Westside and represented the Valley. The Valley business types and Jewish leaders like Hertzberg, and he announced today that secession leaders David Fleming and Keith Richman are among his campaign co-chairs (Nancy Daly Riordan, wife of the former mayor, is another).

Conventional wisdom says he may have a leg up with Latino voters because he has longstanding close ties to county Supervisor Gloria Molina and because his wife is a Latino physician. In any case, it's not good news for Hahn, who needed the Valley in order to defeat Antonio Villaraigosa last time. The wild card still to come: will Villaraigosa run again? Already in: State Sen. Richard Alarcon and Councilman Bernard Parks.

* In the first entry on his campaign blog, Hertzberg harkens back to the early Los Angeles Progressives who fashioned the volunteer commission-style of city governing.

Brief AP story
Hertzberg website
My Los Angeles magazine story on Hertzberg

Hertzberg press release follows:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: John Shallman or Julie Buckner

April 21, 2004

HERTZBERG ENTERS RACE FOR L.A. MAYOR

“Moving Los Angeles Forward” With Energetic, Independent, Reform-Minded Leadership

First 100 Days in Office Will Be Marked by Neighborhood Revitalization, Shift of Power from City Hall to Communities, Sweeping Ethics Reform

Names Diverse Campaign Co-Chairs Committee

Introduces www.bobhertzberg.com Blog

LOS ANGELES, CA – On the heels of Mayor James K. Hahn’s State of the City address and the release of his proposed budget, attorney, businessman, community leader, and former California Assembly Speaker Robert M. Hertzberg announced today that he will be a candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles in 2005. In a prepared statement, “Moving Los Angeles Forward,” Hertzberg announced an energetic reform agenda for his first hundred days in office.

In addition, he named his campaign co-chairs, a diverse group of leaders from L.A.’s business, civic and philanthropic communities, and introduced a campaign weblog (or “blog”) at www.bobhertzberg.com.

“I’m running for Mayor of Los Angeles to bring a new spirit of independent leadership to City Hall. I will be an energetic steward of the public trust and an example of new vitality, willing to break the conventional rules of politics if that’s what it takes to move Los Angeles forward and make it one of the world’s great cities once again,” Hertzberg said in a bold statement affirming his decision.

“For so many years, Los Angeles has led the world in creativity, energy, and innovation. It’s time to recapture that same spirit of imagination—the big ideas and the big dreams that make our city great,” he said.

At the same time, Hertzberg criticized Mayor Hahn, “As we think about today’s problems and tomorrow’s opportunities, we are frustrated and angry because the one person most responsible for advocating a collective vision and marshaling the energy to achieve it is asleep at the switch. It shouldn’t come as a big surprise. Mayor Hahn warned us recently not to look at him “if you're looking for the big, new, dramatic initiative. If you can’t look to the Mayor for solutions, whom can you look to? A big city with big problems deserves a big city Mayor with big solutions. Unfortunately, Mayor Hahn, a twenty-year City Hall politician, has failed us.” (Complete text of Mr. Hertzberg’s statement is attached.)

Saying that Los Angeles needs an “independent, reform-minded Mayor who will work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” Hertzberg outlined several major reforms he will pursue will pursue during the first 100 days of his administration. First, Hertzberg will enlist a volunteer corps of the city’s best and brightest engineers, architects, designers, landscapers, and urban planners to develop a plan to give LA an “extreme makeover” to beautify, cleanup, and revitalize neighborhoods. Second, Hertzberg said he will sit down with each council member and their communities’ neighborhood council representatives, community leaders, school officials, and local business owners to discuss ways to dramatically shift power, budgetary authority, and decision-making to local neighborhoods. Third, he will initiate sweeping changes in our ethics laws to restore confidence and integrity in our system. “We will take the ‘For Sale’ sign down from City Hall and put to rest the notion that this city awards contracts to the powerful few who donate to political campaigns,” Hertzberg said in his statement.

Hertzberg also announced the names of his campaign co-chairs, a group of diverse, bi-partisan leaders from Los Angeles’ business, civic and philanthropic communities. Hertzberg’s campaign co-chairs include: children’s advocate Nancy Daly Riordan, former Lt. Governor and South Los Angeles legislator Mervyn Dymally, San Fernando Valley businessman David Fleming, KB Home Chairman and CEO Bruce Karatz , community activist Elizabeth Lowe, doctor and Assemblymember Keith Richman, Asian community activist Dr. Stanley Toy, and commercial real estate developer Richard Ziman.

Hertzberg also introduced his interactive weblog ("blog")—at bobhertzberg.com--that will feature up-to-date commentary, policy proposals and links. The blog will provide voters with a forum to exchange ideas and give input on a variety of challenges and issues facing Los Angeles. It will also allow supporters to contribute to the campaign online.

Hertzberg has a long history of involvement in Los Angeles public life, in both the private and public sectors. He co-chairs the Universal Access to Preschool Advisory Board of the Los Angeles First Five Commission, leading the charge to provide universal preschool in the County of Los Angeles. He was the author and chief advocate of a plan for borough government in Los Angeles. He is active in an array of leading community organizations and sits on numerous boards, including those of MALDEF, Mulholland Tomorrow, the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, the American Jewish Committee the USC School of Public Policy’s Board of Counselors and the Pepperdine School of Public Policy’s Board of Visitors. Hertzberg represented residents of the San Fernando Valley in the California State Assembly from 1996 to 2002, and was unanimously elected by his colleagues in a bipartisan voice vote to serve as Speaker of the Assembly from 2000 to 2002. He left government service due to term limits in 2002. Bob Hertzberg was born in Los Angeles and attended public elementary school in the City. Hertzberg lives in Sherman Oaks with his wife Dr. Cynthia Telles, a faculty member at the UCLA School of Medicine. Together they have three children.

Hertzberg’s campaign will be directed by strategist and media consultant John Shallman and Shallman Communications in Sherman Oaks.

Hertzberg’s record of service in the legislature, his history of involvement and leadership in L.A’s diverse communities, and his campaign team make Hertzberg a top-contender and formidable candidate in the upcoming mayoral race.