Mayor Is On the Go in 1st Day on the Job

The day after his inauguration, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Saturday helped plant a tree in the Mid-City area, attended a council member’s inauguration in Venice, spoke to police officers working the night shift in Hollywood, then ate dinner with firefighters in South Los Angeles.

“If we had a school, I’d be at it today,” the mayor said, “but schools aren’t open today.”

The event-hopping signaled an energetic start to what he called “a big job.” Indeed, it seemed at times that no one had told the mayor that the campaign was over.

Still keyed up from his swearing-in festivities, Villaraigosa arrived early in a Mid-City neighborhood to help the nonprofit group TreePeople plant a new tree and prune 30 others. He was dressed casually in a short-sleeve shirt and slacks, and seemed eager to help out.

He squatted under some leafy branches and scooped mulch from a bucket before patting the dead leaves and mud around the base of a tree in front of a house.

It gave new meaning to the mayor’s pledge to be a hands-on leader.

“We are going to green-up Los Angeles, make no mistake about it,” Villaraigosa said before taking up a shovel. He dubbed the tree sueno, or dream, a word he used often in his inaugural speech.

Villaraigosa had pledged during his campaign that he would plant 1 million trees in the city, and he told more than 30 volunteers and residents of 5th Avenue on Saturday that their work planting and caring for trees would help him realize his dream.

The mayor asked TreePeople founder Andy Lipkis to help him come up with a plan to plant trees faster and for less money. (At the rate the city Department of Water and Power is now planting trees -- 37,000 during the last five years -- it would take more than a century and $140 million to reach Villaraigosa’s goal of planting 1 million trees.)

Lipkis welcomed the invitation, saying City Hall has not been supportive of his group’s work in the past.

“We have been pounding on the doors of City Hall for 35 years to say we need to green this city,” Lipkis told the mayor.

Villaraigosa told reporters that the red tape requiring TreePeople to get permits and insurance for tree-planting events would be reviewed by the new members of the Board of Public Works whom he appointed last week.

In addition, Villaraigosa announced that Cynthia Ruiz, a former public works commissioner and doctoral student in psychology, would be the new president of the Board of Public Works.

On Friday, he had appointed board members Paula Daniels, a senior research fellow at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and a board member of Heal the Bay, and Dave Sickler, the founder and chief executive of the California Immigrant Workers Assn. The board members, who are paid $107,000 a year, oversee a department that handles engineering, trash collection and street maintenance.

The new appointments filled one vacancy and replaced board members Ronald Low and Janice Wood, who were appointed by former Mayor James K. Hahn.

“We’re going to have a very strong commitment on the Public Works Board to all of the stuff you are doing,” Villaraigosa told Lipkis.

The next stop for the mayor was the swearing-in for new City Councilman Bill Rosendahl in Venice.

Villaraigosa was applauded at the ceremony after repeating his campaign pledge to expand the number of flights at Ontario International Airport and Palmdale Airport, with the hope of easing traffic -- and the strain on neighbors -- at Los Angeles International Airport.

“We need a transportation system and an airport, but we believe it shouldn’t all be at one airport,” he said. “We want to build airport capacity in the region.”

About 5 p.m. Villaraigosa rolled into the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Division substation in a black SUV, greeted by uniformed patrol officers. Inside, the mayor shook hands with about 30 of them and attended the 5 p.m. roll call. He recalled his family’s Los Angeles roots and touted his plan to add at least 1,000 officers to the department.

“This is not only L.A.’s finest, this is a department that is understaffed,” he said as television cameras rolled.

Villaraigosa urged his audience to keep the lines of communication open with his new office.

“My experience is you guys aren’t shy,” he said. “If there is something on your mind, I usually hear.”

The mayor also hinted to the officers why he might have spent so much of Saturday moving tirelessly from event to event. “I’ve certainly got a lot to learn as mayor,” he told them.

After meeting privately with some officers for a few minutes, the mayor headed over to Fire Station 15, near USC, for dinner.

The firefighters had chosen the best cook in the station, Pat Oyama, to prepare a hearty Italian meal of pizza, minestrone and pasta. Earlier, Villaraigosa had confided that he planned his Saturday schedule carefully to make sure it ended at the firehouse. “I figure where else to go for a good meal if I’m not going to be home,” he said.

As Oyama was putting the final touches on the meal, Villaraigosa talked to the firefighters about their biggest concern: the high number of unnecessary 911 calls.

“There’s got to be a way to root out those totally frivolous calls that jam up the 911 system,” said Fire Capt. Lou Gligorijevic. The mayor responded that the public needed to be better educated about the emergency service.

During his travels Saturday, Villaraigosa predicted that his schedule would remain filled with community events throughout his tenure. “I asked for this job,” he said. “It’s a big job. It’s a job that requires someone with a great deal of energy.... I would expect this day in and day out.”

The mayor plans on staying busy today too, visiting an African American museum and attending the National Education Assn. meeting in town.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “I am working all day.”

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Times staff writer Jean Guccione contributed to this report.