Yeah, the honeymoon's over

As Mariel Garza notes in today's Daily News, Saturday will mark Antonio Villaraigosa's anniversary as mayor. With murmurs out of Sacramento that the mayor's school compromise may be no sure thing even in the Legislature, it's safe to say that politician Villaraigosa has had better weeks. Laura Mecoy, the Sacramento Bee's bureau chief in Los Angeles, writes Sunday:

In a city where bad reviews can doom a star's career, critics were giving Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's latest production two thumbs down.

He won raves in Sacramento last week for negotiating a compromise to give him partial control over the city's troubled schools, rather than the complete takeover he wanted. But in Los Angeles, the school board, the school administrators union, the Los Angeles Times editorial writers and parent and community group leaders skewered the agreement. Even the union that cut the deal with him, United Teachers of Los Angeles, had to defend the compromise to its members.

When we chatted yesterday at Dodger Stadium, Villaraigosa admitted being miffed at the Times' toughly critical editorial on Thursday, written right as the plan was announced. A former Hahn Administration insider emailed later that "On June 22, 2006, the LAT fell out of love with MAV. Watch the coverage subtlety shift." Indeed, the Times editorial page continued to fall out of love with a Sunday blast:

[He] reminded us all of what a remarkably gifted politician he is. Too gifted, in this case.

Villaraigosa needed to go to Sacramento and play the role of strong mayor, sticking to his initially stated principles on behalf of Los Angeles students at the risk of offending powerful interests. Instead, he played the role of skilled legislator accommodating these conflicting interests. In other words, he caved....

Villaraigosa's deft deal-making skills have twisted his original plan into a convoluted compromise that would actually lead to more confusion and less accountability....

By tearing the district's structure asunder, retaining an elected board but splitting its powers and setting up an adversarial relationship between board and mayor, and board and superintendent, the main talking points of the next six years will be about who's fighting whom, and who's to blame for what. That's not what an already contentious district needs.

Supt. Roy Romer also chose the today's LAT's Current section to match his education reform credentials against the mayor's:

When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced his plan to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District, I reserved judgment. Many people wanted me to speak out against this idea, but I resisted. Although I was disturbed by the mayor's factually inaccurate rhetoric, I listened carefully to see if any ideas emerged that would deepen and quicken the instructional reforms the district has implemented over the last six years. But last week, after waiting more than a year to see the details of the mayor's plans, I was sorely disappointed...

At the end of this year, I will leave my post of six years to embark on another chapter of my life. I have lived immersed in education and power politics. I was governor of Colorado for three terms, chairman of the National Governors Assn. and chairman of the Democratic National Committee. I also have been on the board of American College Testing for years, and I chaired the first National Education Goals Panel. President Clinton called me his "partner in educational reform."

So I am speaking from 50 years of deep experience when I say that the mayor's compromise is about power and money, not about children — and certainly not about education reform.

Hmm, let's note just for the record that Romer's new press secretary, Shannon Murphy, did the same job for Jim Hahn when he was running against Villaraigosa. Meanwhile, syndicated columnist Jill Stewart gives the mayor a backhanded compliment: "I admire Villaraigosa for sticking his neck out, and I'm still optimistic that he will gradually educate himself about what's wrong with the schools."

Nice cameo by Villaraigosa press deputy Janelle Erickson in the lower photo from Sacramento last week.

Photos: Sacramento Bee/ Anne Chadwick Williams