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Soon-to-be-ex Mayor Jim Hahn gave his first extensive interview since the election to Rick Orlov of the Daily News. Orlov has known Hahn a long time and wrote that the mayor appeared "more relaxed and comfortable with himself than he has in a long time."
"I guess I can go through a midlife crisis now," the 54-year-old Hahn joked. "If you see me driving in a Porsche, you'll know that's what happened."[snip]
Since the election, Hahn went away for several days with his children, Karina and Jackson, riding dirt bikes and making the adjustments to his new life. In the coming weeks, he will continue his schedule as mayor, but will be more low key and deferring on some of the ceremonial aspects to Villaraigosa...
Often seen as a man who walked in the shadow of his late father, the late county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, the mayor suggested that part of what went wrong in his campaign was his failure to practice his father's political lessons: Let people know what you have achieved.
"If I would do anything different during the past four years, I think I would have done more to let people know what I had accomplished," Hahn said.
"I remember hearing my dad tell over and over again the story about how he came up with the idea for freeway call boxes and I said to him, 'Don't you think people know all that by now?' And, he said to me, 'They won't if I don't tell them.'...Democratic consultant Fred MacFarlane, a veteran of City Hall under former Mayor Tom Bradley, said he believes Villaraigosa is fortunate about the condition of the city he is inheriting.
"I don't think anyone can say Los Angeles has gone to hell in a handbasket by any stretch of the imagination," MacFarlane said. "By and large, business seems to be doing well, crime is down and there seems to be a stabilization on how people feel about the city."