Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan dies at 92
LA TimesRichard J. Riordan, the take-charge venture capitalist who as mayor shepherded Los Angeles’ rebound from the 1992 riots, expanded its Police Department and masterminded its recovery from the Northridge earthquake, has died at his Brentwood home. “Mayor Richard Riordan loved Los Angeles, and devoted so much of himself to bettering our city,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. “We’ve gotten a new attitude at City Hall,” Riordan told a group of San Fernando Valley residents in 1997, during his successful campaign for a second term. He once referred to city employees as “brain-dead bureaucrats.” With philanthropist Broad, Riordan also teamed up to spearhead the election of a new board majority for the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1999. He clashed publicly and repeatedly with two of the City Council’s Black members, Rita Walters and Mark Ridley-Thomas, who two years into Riordan’s tenure told The Times that the mayor’s relations with Black residents had been “limited and strained.” A majority of Black voters supported his opponents in the 1993 election.
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‘One of a kind’: Family, civic leaders mourn Richard Riordan at cathedral he championed
LA Times
Richard Riordan, former Los Angeles mayor, has died at 92
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