A Bigger, Bolder Mayor

James K. Hahn shrank the office of mayor, so the people of Los Angeles took it away from him. Only about a third of eligible Los Angeles voters cast ballots Tuesday, but the ones who did voted decisively for City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa over the incumbent mayor. The seemingly endless runoff election was a rematch from four years ago, only then voters handed Villaraigosa a defeat as bitter as Tuesday’s victory was sweet. What changed?

Not enough, apparently.

Voters want a mayor who will do something about the city’s failing schools, and they don’t care if the mayor has no direct control over the Los Angeles Unified School District. They want a mayor to get traffic moving, and they don’t want to hear that money is tied up by greedy Sacramento politicians or stingy Washington ones. They want a mayor who actually delivers the police officers he promised. On a more ethereal level, Angelenos want a leader who will be a more commanding presence in marketing the city in the global economy.

Winning -- even fighting back from defeat -- was the easy part. Delivering what voters want will command all of Villaraigosa’s coalition-building skills.

In using the sketchy powers of his office to push change at schools, for example, he will need to prod, shame and fight not just the superintendent and school board but the teachers union he once represented as an organizer. He will have to woo Police Chief William J. Bratton, whose hiring was Hahn’s signature accomplishment, without alienating the former chief, City Councilman Bernard C. Parks, whose ouster by Hahn and subsequent endorsement of his fellow council member brought many African American voters into the Villaraigosa camp.

The wrong lesson to derive from Hahn’s defeat is that tough decisions cost votes. In Hahn’s case, they did -- but not as many as his failure to follow them with vigorous leadership that would have rallied all neighborhoods in the fight against crime, that would have won over the disgruntled San Fernando Valley residents who wanted to secede.

The low turnout belies the historic resonance of Tuesday’s electoral verdict. Villaraigosa will become the first Latino mayor of our Spanish-named city in modern times, and one of the most prominent Latino politicians nationwide.

Be bold, Mayor-elect Villaraigosa. Borrow ideas broadly, and don’t just credit the people who came up with them -- make them part of your team. Put former rival Bob Hertzberg in charge of your effort to reform schools. Take Hertzberg’s vision of South-Central Los Angeles as one of the city’s great missed opportunities, and ask Parks to lead the effort to invest in housing and commercial development there. Don’t play the petty pol and banish City Council colleagues with good ideas just because they endorsed Hahn.

Learn something from this election, even if the lesson is ultimately about humility. Treat this city as a treasured family business. Run an honest, open City Hall. Reward voters, not campaign contributors. Insist that every commissioner you name, every manager you appoint, every staff member you hire deliver the message that Los Angeles is not a “pay-to-play” city.

Show the skeptics that you do not see this job merely as a steppingstone to the next, bigger role. But if you do see it that way, know that the path to get there lies in doing a spectacular job over the next four years.