A Walk in Rick Orlov’s City Hall

Rick Orlov of the Los Angeles Daily News, long known as the
dean of City Hall reporters, is that rare media type who has no enemies. That’s
because he’s long had a reputation for being an old-fashioned straight shooter
who honors secrets not only in print, but also in hallway gossip.

“He’s a person you can trust,” Richard Riordan remarked once
when he was mayor. “He’s not some young person trying to prove himself with a
gotcha.”

“A big part of it is, you don’t play favorites,” Orlov said
recently over lunch at Pete’s Café & Bar, the new downtown hangout for
local pols. He’s covered City Hall for the Daily News since 1988; I worked with
him there in the early ’80s, when he was city editor. “I always remember what
an editor told me when I started out: ‘These people are not your friends,'”
Orlov added.

Orlov, 55, was born in Chicago and spent his early years in
the Midwest. His parents, both children of Russian Jewish immigrants, met in Los
Angeles during World War II at a Hillel-sponsored dance; his father was in
the Navy and his mother was a UCLA student. When he was 11, Orlov’s family
moved to Encino, where his father managed an insurance office, and his
religious training ended.

“Up until then, I had been in Hebrew school studying for a
bar mitzvah and we attended temple regularly,” Orlov said. “But when we came
here, my father got in a fight with the rabbi at our new temple, and since his
own religious background was minimal, our family became fairly secular. We had
Passover seders … but most of the rest was abandoned.”

Orlov, who’s a bachelor of the old-fashioned,
married-to-his-work newspaperman type, is such a City Hall institution that for
years no one complained about his lighting up cigarette after cigarette in full
view of the mayor and various councilmembers and their aides. Puffing away in
office buildings has, of course, long been illegal, but Orlov’s chainsmoking
habit apparently was tacitly OK’d under some sort of grandfather clause. It’s a
moot point now, since he gave up the cigs (and lost 30 pounds) after he was
diagnosed with diabetes a couple years ago.

“When they cut off your toes it gets your attention,” said
Orlov, who now gets around with a duck-headed cane and a handicapped parking
pass. He can still drink, which is fortunate, as a key technique of his
schmoozey style of information gathering is his endearing willingness to buy
everyone a round.

Another newspaper tradition he’s kept up is open cynicism
about the grandstanding and ineffective ways of local politicians, particularly
the L.A. City Council.

“They came out against Proposition 187, so you knew it would
pass,” he said. “And then there’s the war in Iraq. They were against the
Patriot Act, and there’s a lot of things to dislike about the Patriot Act, but
I can’t believe anyone in Washington cares what the L.A. City Council thinks.”

Over the years, Orlov has seen City Council demographics
change along with those of Los Angeles.

“When I came to City Hall in 1988, five of the 15 council
members were Jewish and the Bradley administration had a strong presence from
the Jewish community in staff jobs, contributors and political advisers. Today
I think the only Jewish members are Wendy Greuel, Jack Weiss and, through
conversion for marriage, Jan Perry,” he said about the African American.

“Councilman Bernard Parks counts a number of advisers from
the Jewish community, as does Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa and Councilman
Dennis Zine,” Orlov continued. “Mayor James Hahn does not seem to have the same
level of Jewish support that went either to Richard Riordan or Tom Bradley.
Hahn’s tried to inherit it, but he’s had a hard time.”

Much of the Jewish community, Orlov noted, was split between
Hahn and Villaraigosa in the mayoral election. “That was primarily due to
Riordan’s backing of Villaraigosa,” he noted, “as well as from Jewish leaders
like Eli Broad. I’m not sure it has made much of a difference on the council as
far as its policies, since it remains a heavily Democratic body that is
generally more liberal in its policies than the city’s population, and, as in
the past, composed of activists on social issues.”

Even if he hadn’t had to cut back his drinking, which used
to extend to Friday evening boozefests at the Daily News press office in City
Hall, Orlov finds local politics these days not only less Jewish, but less
colorful. “The Riordan administration was more fun because they were so
unprofessional politically,” he said. “Riordan would just say whatever was on
his mind, whereas [Mayor James] Hahn has been around politics since he was 5
years old.”

We drove back to the underground City Hall parking garage,
and I was impressed by the Dean of City Hall’s prime parking space. Rick
smiled.

“It’s that whole Deandom thing,” he said.