Riordan Raises $1.4 Million to Back School Board Slate

After weeks of silence on his efforts to shake up the Los Angeles Board of Education, Mayor Richard J. Riordan spoke with dollar signs this week, filing reports showing that he has raised more than $1.4 million for candidates he is backing in next month’s board election.

The size of the campaign chest means that the three challengers and one incumbent board member backed by Riordan will potentially be able to outspend their opponents three to four times over, dramatically overshadowing the traditional power of school district employees and unions in board politics.

In reports released by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission on Friday, the Coalition for Kids listed 157 donors from among the city’s elite leaders of business, finance and law, many the same people who contributed to Riordan’s slate of charter commission candidates in 1996.

Most of the donations came from a $1,000-a-person reception given by Riordan and his wife, Nancy Daly, late last month.

Several people who were at that reception said Riordan told backers then that he intends to keep raising money until he has $2 million to pump into the race.

Among the top contributors was multimillionaire home builder and financier Eli Broad, who also has put his money behind the effort to bring a professional football team to Los Angeles and is leading the fund-raising campaign to complete the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Broad donated $250,000 to the school board race.

Broad’s office said he was out of town Friday and unavailable for comment.

Carrick said most of the donors are longtime Riordan friends who share his concern over the state of public education.

“These people are folks who have been active in civic life in Los Angeles for many years and feel we are in an educational meltdown and they want to do something to fix the schools,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic political consultant who is advising Riordan’s committee, the Coalition for Kids. “They feel like the school board is a good place to start.”

Haim Saban, one of three donors who gave $50,000, said his motivation was explained by Friday’s news reports on California’s ranking near last in a national reading test.

“Something isn’t working,” Saban said. “Gotta bring change. Gotta make it better.”

Saban, chairman and chief executive officer of Fox Family Worldwide, which owns the Fox Family Channel, said he trusts Riordan to pick the best candidates for change.

Riordan is backing board member David Tokofsky and challengers Genethia Hayes, Mike Lansing and Caprice Young.

Hayes is opposing board member Barbara Boudreaux in South Los Angeles; Lansing is challenging board member George Kiriyama in the South Bay, and Young is trying to unseat board member Jeff Horton in the district that stretches from Silver Lake to North Hollywood.

The mayor’s fund-raising clout is still only trickling into the campaigns.

Carrick said the committee had not determined how the $2 million would be divided among the four candidates.

Other reports that reached the Ethics Commission on Thursday and Friday showed that the candidates targeted by Riordan are falling far behind their opponents.

Kiriyama, who jumped out early with nearly $125,000 in contributions late last year, added only $8,318 in the first two months of 1999. Most of Kiriyama’s funds have come in small amounts from school district employees.

Boudreaux more than doubled her total contributions with about $44,000 in the most recent reporting period, but had already spent all but $20,000 of it.

After a slow start in the last period, Horton raised about $78,000.

Hayes led all the candidates in this period, raising about $98,000. Besides the Riordan money, her report listed numerous contributions of $500 to $1,000 from business people and attorneys.

Tokofsky’s opponent, Yolie Flores Aguilar, trailed all other candidates this period, raising about $28,000, mostly in small donations.