Mayoral Race Turns Into a Valley Fight

Richard Riordan did Weby’s Deli. Tom Hayden worked the room at Jerry’s.

The mayor got some joe at Seattle’s Best Coffee. The senator went for Starbucks.

But it all took place on the same vote-rich turf Tuesday as both mayoral candidates waged war for the San Fernando Valley that helped vault Riordan into City Hall four years ago.

And the politicking literally went mano a mano shortly after lunch, when Hayden tried to ambush Riordan at Kinko’s Copies in Studio City at the start of Riordan’s walking tour along Ventura Boulevard.

“I look forward to our debates,” said the impish Hayden, stepping out of a group of bystanders and extending his hand.

If the mayor was surprised, he didn’t show it. Instead, Riordan shook hands, uttered a cordial reply and went on, never dropping his photo-ready smile.

Such was the climactic moment of Tuesday’s dueling walkabouts on the Valley’s main drag, where the mayor tried to shore up his support and his challenger attempted to make inroads.

Hayden started out in Woodland Hills, continuing his effort to walk the entire length of the boulevard--up one side and down the other--by the April 8 election. Despite the relatively conservative surroundings, he found fans of his message that Riordan has failed the city, and he accused the mayor of reneging on promises to bulk up the police force and bring affordable mass transit to the Valley.

“I think he’s about truth. I think he’s about reality,” said Jerry Hollywood, 58, a Woodland Hills real estate broker whose table Hayden briefly joined for breakfast at Jerry’s Famous Deli.

“I have a vision for the Valley--quality of life, schools, safety,” Hayden said. “We’re going to contest this area.”

In a flier handed out to shopkeepers and customers in Woodland Hills in the morning and Encino in the afternoon, Hayden promised to increase community involvement in policing, be more accessible to residents throughout the city, reform municipal government and even decrease noise at Van Nuys Airport.

But he still needs to convince people like Marcia Hayden, 47, a marriage and family counselor who is no relation to the senator but sometimes feels like one.

“I get Tom Hayden’s mail, I get his phone calls, I get his Christmas cards,” she said.

But at this point, it’s Riordan who is more likely to get her vote. “I’ve been impressed with what he’s done,” she said, although her encounter with Hayden in the Western Bagel shop made her more open to his mayoral bid.

While Hayden, true to his grass-roots background, slowly canvassed the shopping center storefront by storefront, Riordan was taken on a quick four-block tour by members of the Studio City Chamber of Commerce who wanted to show off their backyard businesses and put in a pitch for a new local parking structure.

Strong support for a second Riordan term came from a group of diners at the Mexicali Cocina Cantina. They extolled his tough stand on crime, his efforts to revive the flagging real estate market and his dedication to the city.

“The mayor is not some sort of PR hog--he’s just interested in doing his job,” Paul Stafford said as photographers jostled for good camera angles and Riordan’s press aides jogged behind him in his official entourage.

One of his hosts, Louise Dedeyne, a vice president of the chamber, took a more measured view of Riordan’s achievements, praising him for his economic initiatives but still waiting to see what impact they will have.

“I don’t think they have improved appreciably yet,” she said of the quality-of-life issues Hayden has tried to put in Riordan’s debit column.

But Hayden’s charge that Riordan has neglected the Valley since securing its vote in 1993 fell on several pairs of deaf ears. Noelia Rodriguez, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said that her boss has appointed more Valley residents to city commissions and raised the Valley’s profile higher than at any time in recent mayoral administrations.

“I love the Valley. My campaign headquarters is in the Valley,” said Riordan, who made four separate Valley appearances Tuesday.

“The Valley [has been] really very high on my radar screen since I’ve been mayor.”