THE REINVENTION OF BERNARD PARKS

If there was ever a place for the speech that would focus the rage of the black community, and for the march to gather that would storm city hall, it would be here, in the Lucy Florence Coffee House, the pride of Leimert Park, which one of those present calls the "last bastion" of African-American culture in South Los Angeles. But it's not going to be today. And it's not going to come from mayoral candidate Bernard Parks.

It's noonish on Saturday, two days after the LAPD's on-camera beating of Stanley Miller, and Councilman Parks sits smiling slightly on a small cabaret stage before two-dozen constituents, looking immaculate and mischievous, a sharp-eyed grandfather in his greyed hair and open shirt collar. The morning had already seen some impassioned pleas to save the coffee shop, which is under threat of eviction, so tension is high. Parks takes a question about Inclusionary Zoning and delivers a detailed, diplomatic answer about balancing the need for low-income housing without scaring off developers. But when the second question is about that videotaped beating, little about his demeanor changes. If he's outraged - and he could be - it just doesn't show. It's an ex-police chief talking.

"The tape speaks for itself," says Parks, a man who loves to speak, and tends to conjure a Clinton-like cloud of wonkery and hypotheticals. "You don't have to be a police officer or a police expert to see that there are some issues here ... " and then he slips directly into an emotionless analysis of the details. What was the demeanor of officers one-through-seven? What exactly would constitute being "out of policy?" Was there a crime involved?

Lost for an instant, just long enough, is the idea that a clearly submissive black man was videotaped being kicked and beaten with a flashlight by LAPD, and that the last time this happened on camera half of South L.A. ended up in flames.

Not everyone is surprised. "This is the same guy who defended the police shooting of a homeless woman armed with a screwdriver in 1999," snorts community activist Najee Ali, founder of Project Islamic Hope, standing by a magazine rack. In that case, the Margaret Mitchell shooting, then-Chief Parks defended police conduct but was later officially castigated by the Los Angeles Police Commission, the LAPD's civilian oversight board.

When Ali turns the topic to Keyser Towing, the black-owned towing company which Parks is trying to help retain a city contract despite apparently losing that contract fairly to a rival company, another dapper middle-aged African-American man starts losing patience. Anger about the beating and the eviction is simmering. "This is getting too polite for me," he barks into the mic. "You should be representing us!"

Parks shows at last that he really is a politician at heart, and turns the issue to his advantage: "We don't have any leadership in the mayor's office," he says, not missing a beat. It's not just a beating or an eviction, he says, and then runs down a list of issues affecting the black community, including the towing contract, the jump in water rates, Hahn's LAX plan, low-income housing, and on and on. But there will be no satisfying condemnations of the LAPD from Parks today.

"That's why we have to do what we can to affect a change in the mayor's office," he concludes soberly, the whole thing feeling cordial and heartfelt, yet strangely unsatisfying. Welcome to the mayor's race, Parks style.

Gorilla Tussle

When Bernard Parks announced June 17 he would run for mayor of Los Angeles, there was plenty of speculation as to whether or not Hahn was really that vulnerable and if Parks was the man for the job, but there wasn't much question as to why he was running.

"It's payback time," chuckles Robert Stern, president of the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. "It's pretty simple. He's very upset at Hahn."

It's a characterization that both Parks's and Mayor James Hahn's camps disavow, but not many are buying the professional decorum. Parks was a 37-year veteran of the LAPD who'd risen through the ranks to become only its second black police chief, when incoming Mayor Hahn maneuvered through City Council and the Police League to deny him a second term and bring in William Bratton from New York City instead. It was a move that shocked Parks and, to some extent, the city's black community. South L.A. neighborhoods like Leimert Park and Crenshaw that make up Parks's 8th Council District had voted overwhelmingly for Hahn on the reputation of his father, the late Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who served for 40 years and was popular among minority voters.

Parks turned right around and grabbed that district seat for himself in 2002, in an election that was less a landslide than a foregone conclusion, as he swept up over 75 percent of the vote. Almost more important, Parks - who'd never run for office before - raised almost $500,000 in a short campaign. That was as much or more than any other City Council candidate, and it came from L.A.'s poorest district. Parks could muster support from the black community's power elite in figures like basketball legend-turned-inner-city-entrepreneur Earvin "Magic" Johnson. The message was clear: Hahn had a fight on his hands.

But Parks's one term as police chief had also revealed what might be his fatal flaw - or might have been, if he's fixed it since: he alienated his troops, and then became defensive about it. He cooperated with the Rampart corruption investigations and, some say, protected many from prosecution. Former LAPD Detective Russell Poole claimed that Parks prevented him from investigating Death Row Records, which Parks has adamantly denied. These gained few convictions but cracked open plenty of dirty department business. In the minds of the rank and file and the League, it all served no purpose other than saddling the department with a federal Consent Decree. He was damned coming and going. Cops other than blacks wanted him gone, and the investigations failed to placate increasingly suspicious Angelenos, who'd seen nothing but a steady decline in the department since the Rodney King beating in '91, on through the outrageous Rampart revelations of the late-'90s, which spread from police drug dealing to alleged involvement in the Tupac and Biggie shootings to a pattern of bogus arrests (and expensive court settlements).

Crime levels started at a three-decade low, then began to climb. Simply put, too much bad news came to light during Parks's watch, and he did little to explain or excuse it. He capped it off with a furious hour-long rant at the City Council on the day they let him go as police chief, laying out in meticulous detail (he distributed hand-outs) just exactly how they had failed him and the department. He didn't play politics, and he got thrown out because of it.

It was a mistake he wouldn't let happen as councilman, where he has developed overnight into a kind of old-school, pothole-fixing, pro-African American business booster. But at least the smell of that bad blood lingers. Could Parks lead a city establishment that had once effectively shown him the door?

"The crystal ball is very, very cloudy. But if I took the money out of my pocket, I'd bet on Jimmy Hahn," says Joe Cerrell, political consultant and longtime L.A. elections guru. The incumbent, he said, should be winning it outright, and it was too early to tell if that was happening. "Okay," he added, "it's Hahn vs. fill-in-the-blank."

So Parks's run would look like a hotheaded bid - except that former state Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg of Sherman Oaks (the state's second most powerful political post) and State Senator Richard Alarcon, both Democrats, have already jumped in.

"I think that Hertzberg running shows he thinks Hahn is vulnerable," says Stern. Parks's entry, then, seems less like pure revenge. "These are all very strong candidates. I mean, Villaraigosa is obviously another very important factor in this race. If he runs, then we know what the polls are indicating, how vulnerable Hahn is."

"The mayor's not vulnerable. He will be reelected," counters attorney Bill Wardlaw, campaign spokesman for Hahn. "He's made this city safer by bringing in an outstanding police chief who's reinvigorated the police department. He held this city together, despite the threat of secession."

But even if it came down to a run-off, which many say is more likely already with Parks in the race, Hahn might carry the day. He's perfectly situated to take advantage of any shortcomings in the others, individually or collectively. Any African-American votes not gone to Parks, Hahn picks up. Same thing with Latino votes not gone to Villaraigosa or Alarcon, who work against each other, and the Jewish Valley votes not gone to Hertzberg. Common wisdom says that, barring any ugly indictments in the so-called "pay-to-play" fundraising scandal among Hahn commissioners and aides, he survives any run-off.

Thinking more cynically, there could be another reason Parks would run: It's his last chance. "Bernie is, the last time I noticed, 60 years old," says Cerrell, noting that term limits have meant that mayors in Los Angeles have an even easier time getting eight years in office. "He could maybe sit out one term, but if somebody else runs and wins, then Bernie could be about 70 years old by the time the seat opened up again."

Villaraigosa must be thinking the same thing: he could stick with his current work for John Kerry and probably find a position within his administration in D.C., but does he really want to wait four years if Hahn is elected, or eight if someone else is?

"There is no question that, in Los Angeles politics, as it relates to black people, Bernard Parks is the 800-pound gorilla," says real estate developer and activist Danny Bakewell, publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel, an African-American newspaper. "The question is: Can he transcend that and become the 800-pound gorilla in city and state politics?"

Because of the way Parks was taken out of the police department, he says, Hahn has inspired skepticism within the black community. Bakewell made it clear that he hadn't yet made up his mind whom to back, however. "I will say that Hahn has been doing a great job to try to mitigate those past problems of his and to try to show people that he really is desirous of helping in a very meaningful way.

"And, of course, if Antonio gets in, then you got at a minimum another 800-pound gorilla," laughs Bakewell. "This might be called the Gorilla Tussle, before it's all over."

Wal-Mart's Bad Rap

Of course, it's a reflection of South Los Angeles realities that Bernard Parks never met a job he didn't like. Living wage, low wage, whatever. He's got bigger problems than worrying about the mallifying aspects of a franchise economy, or the political fibrillations of the city's progressive Latino-labor coalition. He's got empty lots, the feds de-funding Section 8 housing, gang killings. He's got poverty.

When he turns up at the CityBeat offices for a June 24 interview, a tall center of calm in a dashing light gray suit after a day of interviews with MSNBC and others on the Miller beating, he makes it plain that he blames Hahn for not finding more jobs. Mayoring, he says, is not just about juggling budgets (Parks is chairman of the council's budget and finance committee); mayoring is not about squeezing old accounts. Mayoring, Parks says, is about finding new juice.

"At the mid-term, 2003, the L.A. Times did a little softball story. They said, 'Mr. Mayor, what can we expect in your next two years?'" says Parks, sitting forward in his chair, in charge of his facts, reviewing them with an unwavering, inward gaze. "And his exact quote was, 'Don't look for anything big from me.'" He pauses, clearly relishing the impact. [CityBeat could not verify this quote - ed.]

"And then you realize that the mayor of the city of L.A. is really the regional leader for the entire region. They're looking to the mayor of the city for that leadership and direction. It's just not there."

Parks wants to do big things. Big bucks. Big box. Don't get him started on the subject of the NFL. If he starts talking about the NFL, you might still be talking football when the lights go out. His number one proposal for bringing new money into Los Angeles is to bring the NFL to the Coliseum. Let's be very precise: not a new stadium in Carson. Not the Rose Bowl. But the Coliseum. Pasadena doesn't need the shot in the arm like Exposition Park.

"It's been a year-and-a-half of my life sitting there trying to figure out how do we attract the NFL," Parks says. "Now, for the first time in 15 years, we actually have a term sheet from the NFL that says, 'How do we do business?' And it's ours to lose because everybody else has fallen out of the equation. That's how you bring new businesses in."

Maybe Parks does have an edge on the football question, if only in passion. He coached ball for 10 years as a cop and mentored guys like legendary quarterback Warren Moon. Bakewell credits him for leading the charge.

"A lot of people have tried, and they have come up short, including the present mayor," says Bakewell. "But Parks is not doing this alone. He's providing the leadership for it. Not only Hahn, but all of these guys, generally, have not demonstrated the kind of political will and commitment to that area. Football coming to the Coliseum dramatically increases the kind of economic generation that needs to happen in the black community."

Would there be problems with the Coliseum? Sure there would. There'd be problems with Wal-Mart, too, says Parks, but he'd take another one of those.

As of last week, Parks is now officially on record as being opposed to Councilman Eric Garcetti's ordinance banning big-box stores from the city of L.A. Parks knows they've been a bad actor, and doesn't like the way Wal-Mart went around the Inglewood council to try to bully their way into a supercenter with a ballot initiative. But he discounts those widely-touted studies - including one commissioned by the Orange County Business Council, hardly a radical left-wing bunch - saying that for every two jobs created by Wal-Mart, three are lost to local businesses. Instead, Parks routinely refers to the pro-Wal-Mart study put out by the L.A. Economic Development Agency, a study which was funded by Wal-Mart. His picture is on the wall at the Baldwin Hills store, right next to that of Chairman Robert Walton, son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.

"People say Wal-Mart does not deserve to be in L.A.," says Parks, moving from pet project to pet project; after one year in council, he's racked up a whole armload of them. "What other retailer brought 500 jobs in the last year? What other retailer brings a million people a month to Baldwin Hills shopping center? Now we should tell those 500 people, 'Go home,' because someone doesn't like the way that Wal-Mart operates? Wal-Mart needs to clean up their act in a variety of ways, but that doesn't mean that you leave a store vacant and a shopping center depressed when you have the ability to bring in 500 jobs."

Parks, says one labor activist embedded in the negotiation of Community Benefits Agreements, which seek to mitigate the effects of big development, is "constitutionally opposed to politicized development." By contrast, 7th District Councilman Alex Padilla, representing the working-class areas of the Eastern San Fernando Valley, has endorsed the big-box ban, saying Wal-Marts would further depress his area.

"The scuttlebutt is that he's not too good with labor issues," says another activist who works on issues in Parks's district and thus asked not to be identified. It is true, however, that Parks received a fair share of union support in his run for council.

One place where Parks is now going head-to-head with both Hahn, other members of the council, community activists, and unions is on the plan to renovate LAX. The airport is not in Parks's district, but his constituents live in the shadow of overhead traffic day and night, and his concern, he says, is mitigation. Hahn's original $9 billion-plus plan, which was essentially inherited from Richard Riordan, ran into snags for over a decade until Hahn and Westside Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski recently hammered out a resolution to get some of the construction underway while the rest is studied. Under Miscikowski's plan, which was endorsed June 14 by a couple of key city commissions, longtime sticking points in the airport plan were shelved - like the elimination of three terminals and the construction of a new remote ground transportation center for screening passengers and luggage. But several elements were pushed forward, including a runway upgrade, renovation of the Tom Bradley International Terminal, and a new consolidated rental car area. Hahn and Miscikowski have also indicated they'll work with community and labor activists to build a Community Benefits Agreement into the plan.

For being a guy who likes jobs, Parks likes none of this. He has come up with his own seven-point plan, a version of the Miscikowski plan, which he hopes - though it's unlikely - will block both of theirs. What it seems like, in part, is a finger in Hahn's eye - not wanting the mayor to take any credit for releasing any of the money, or being behind any of the fat construction contracts.

"About a year ago, we had a task force of community people and they put together a very in-depth report about the kinds of things that the airport ignored in our community," says Parks. The issues included traffic, noise pollution, and health effects like asthma. "It pretty much supported where Cindy Miscikowski was going until she made a decision to compromise on her plan. Basically, she wants to build the mayor's plan in increments."

"We've spent 12 years and maybe $130 million on this so far," counters David Kissinger, Miscikowski's deputy for airport relations. "Ms. Miscikowski is of the opinion that we're not willing to throw that all away."

Plus, says Kissinger, there are issues that can't wait. "There is a very serious safety issue on the runways. There are very serious post-9/11 safety issues with the terminals. There are serious growth issues regarding traffic and mitigation. What if we do nothing? The world will still grow up around our airport and will beat a path to our door, whether we do anything or not."

Scratch Parks's plan, and you'll find residual anger at unions right under the surface. Fallout from his bitter experience with the Police League?

"You don't just go forward on a special interest deal saying, 'Here's $9 billion for the trade unions,'" Parks says. "They're in the starting blocks, ready to go. You find the police and the fire unions that, basically, almost anything that they've requested the mayor has found a way to do, even when you figure the lack of benefit to the community.

"If you destroy the airport that now funds about a half a million jobs," he adds, "what is it that you do to the whole region? If you don't come up with a regional plan for airports in the next couple years, you and I will be log-jammed just trying to get to LAX by 2015."

What Hahn and Miscikowski have done, charges Parks, is simply move all the non-controversial items forward, and leave the rest without a master plan. The terminals may or may not be redone. The People Mover may or may not reappear. And there's no mention of interaction with Burbank or Ontario or Palmdale airports. Additional Environmental Impact Reports alone, he notes, could bog each piece down and make them vastly more expensive.

"This is the worst kind of planning you can do," he pleads. "It only takes eight votes to move any one of these things individually. But we don't know where it's all leading. Until we run the airports as a system, we'll continue to have these problems."

"The mayor and Councilperson Miscikowski have worked very hard formulating a plan for which I believe there will be not only broad consensus in the council, but throughout Los Angeles," says Bill Wardlaw. "Councilperson Parks's competing plan, I don't think will get a lot of traction."

This Year's Model: Bernard Parks, Politician

But this is more than a tale of revenge. Revenge is probably as good a reason to run for mayor as any other, in the end, but it would be an underestimation of Bernard Parks. Indeed, it would be to miss the whole second half of his story, which is happening right before our very eyes: his rebirth from authoritarian cop to coalition-building, glad-handing, deal-making politician.

Judging from his short, hard ride as police chief, you'd think Parks ill-suited to the job. But, in fact, he's taken to it instantly. In council, Parks has a terrific reputation. He's funny and charming, a passer of dry and subtle jokes, a raconteur who can be patrician without patronizing. He's principled, but not pig-headed. He's still really a freshman, but he's been brought on to the Housing, Community and Economic Development Committee and chairs the Budget and Finance Committee. He darts around his district voraciously scooping up info: here's a woman who wants to build a South L.A. soundstage to hold down costs and stop runaway production; here's a lot that would be perfect for Trader Joe's; over here's a plan to boost cable TV viewership and then tax it to fill city coffers.

And yes, he's also on the Public Safety Committee. But things have changed since his days as a kind of sideways Serpico. Just ask his former adversary, Councilman Dennis Zine.

"It's a much more comfortable relationship with him, as a colleague here in council, than as a union director fighting the management of the department, which we did constantly. It was always a fight," says Zine.

When Parks was shut out of his second term as chief, Zine was director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League and worked to throw him out. He represented everything Parks loathes about unions. When asked why his newfound colleague was removed from his job then, Zine doesn't pull any punches.

"When he was the chief of police, it was very dictatorial. Negative discipline. Not inspiring to the rank and file or to the command staff. It was a hostile, negative environment. I think you could look at the claims - hostile work environment, retaliation cases - that were filed against the city under his watch. The fact of the matter is, it was a demoralized, ineffective style of management. The union was constantly filing litigation against the department."

But today, even Hahn gets the soft touch from Parks. When he isn't in campaign mode, that is.

"It's a whole different personality," says Zine. "Everyone thought that we would be fighting, at each other's throats all the time. But we're professional, mature, elected officials. He and I have a wonderful working relationship."

That, say the handicappers, is going to serve him well.

"He's done some good as a councilman," says Joe Cerrell. "He's got name recognition. But let's face it: there are some negatives. He got canned."

"If you only view my career in my one year as a councilman, you'd come to that conclusion," counters Parks. "But we don't have an individual who only reflects the 8th District. We have the individual who's put 38 years of their life in a city in a variety of capacities, has been in people's backyards, been in their houses, been around. I don't need anybody to validate my credentials as law enforcement. Other candidates would jump through hoops to get it. I have what is viewed as something in the neighborhood of 90 percent name recognition. And most of it is positive."

Can South L.A. be the whole city? Parks says it doesn't have to be. "The community I represent is going to be very supportive, but I don't think we can ignore the relationships I've had in this city over a long period of time."