Riordan chats it up with unions

L.A.'s former mayor has been meeting with a number of city unions about pension reform and health costs, two areas he sees as crippling L.A.'s fiscal outlook. "What I'm trying to do is get them to look at the problem and talk more about it," Riordan tells Rick Orlov at the Daily News. "What I want is to try to get them to begin looking at the city's problems realistically." Some weeks back, Riordan said in a WSJ oped that L.A. ran the risk of bankruptcy between now and 2014 unless there were big changes in long-term pension obligations. The current mayor pooh-poohed the former mayor's warnings, as did other city officials (some of whom clearly didn't understand the laws regarding municipal bankruptcy). "I'm just trying to get people talking and thinking about where we are," Riordan said. "If the city is going to survive, we need to change the way we're doing business."