L.A.’s Unknown Soldier

Despite Business and Civic Ties, City Vague on Simon

By HOWARD FINE

Staff Reporter

Bill Simon, the newly crowned Republican gubernatorial nominee, has lived in L.A. for 12 years and has had his investment shop, William E. Simon & Sons, in West L.A., for 14 years. Given that history, the son of the former U.S. Treasury Secretary should have been a household name in local civic and business circles.

Yet few Angelenos in the business and civic world even knew Simon was here until a few months ago, when the gubernatorial primary heated up.

Unlike his primary opponent Richard Riordan, Simon did not cultivate his name in general business and civic circles before he threw his hat into the ring a year ago. He didn’t serve on local government commissions, he wasn’t involved in high-profile efforts on L.A.’s civic scene like the rescue of the Disney Concert Hall, and he didn’t emerge as a leading public voice for school reform.

“I haven’t seen him lighting the fire of people I’m aware of in the civic and business world,” said billionaire businessman Eli Broad, who is widely regarded as L.A.’s leading civic presence. Broad, a Democrat, said he firmly supports Simon’s opponent in the general election, incumbent Gov. Gray Davis.

Simon’s civic involvement has been low profile. He serves on the boards of children’s service organizations like Covenant House. His wife Cindy has also been involved in

efforts to improve local education, including serving on the board of L.A.’s Best, an after-school program for disadvantaged youngsters.

“We’ve been very active, and the magnitude of our activities has been very significant,” Simon said last week. “We’ve just chosen different ways to be active and haven’t sought publicity for what we’ve done. It’s just low-profile.”

Unknown quantity

As a result, Simon is largely an unknown quantity in his hometown, just as he is statewide. One of the reasons Davis feared Riordan was that he believed Riordan could defeat him in the traditional Democratic stronghold of L.A., forcing Davis to seek votes in areas traditionally less favorable to Democrats.

Simon’s relative anonymity here means that he faces an uphill battle to narrow Davis’ overwhelming advantage in Los Angeles and may have to devote more resources to that task than Riordan would have had he won. If Simon is unable to cut into Davis’ lead here, the consensus is that Davis will have the upper hand come November.

“This is a race that will come down along more traditional geographic lines,” said Dan Schnur, a Republican commentator who briefly served on Riordan’s gubernatorial exploratory committee. “That means a Democrat like Davis has to win L.A. and San Francisco by a large enough margin to make up for losses incurred in other parts of the state. If a Republican can reduce that margin, it changes the entire dynamics of the race.”

Simon and his supporters downplay his relative anonymity in Los Angeles compared to Riordan.

“I don’t think my previous low profile will hurt my chances,” Simon said. “All you have to do is look at the polling results I had against Dick Riordan here.” Simon polled 42 percent of the Republican vote here last week, compared to Riordan’s 48 percent on the former mayor’s home turf.

“If Gray Davis thinks Simon is some rich kid who doesn’t know his way around L.A., he will find himself very much mistaken,” said William Ouchi, professor of management at the Anderson School at UCLA and a close friend of Simon. “There’s a vast network of people in both L.A. and across the state who know Bill and what he’s done over the years and they will be supportive.”

Simon was born in Neptune, N.J. A lawyer, he spent three years in the 1980s working as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York. In 1988, he co-founded the private investment firm of William E. Simon & Sons in Los Angeles with his father. Ouchi said Simon is a player in L.A. civic circles, just not in the same set of civic and philanthropic leaders that constantly make headlines.

“Most of the people you and I think of when it comes to civic leadership here in L.A. are 15 to 20 years older than Simon is,” Ouchi said. “As a result, he’s in a different circle of movers and shakers. They tend to be more idea people.”

Working with children

What’s more, Ouchi said, Simon’s work generally has been in the area of disadvantaged children, not in the higher-profile society efforts like the L.A. Philharmonic. Besides Covenant House, Simon serves on the board of Children’s Hospital.

“His involvement is not glamorous, so that’s one big reason why it doesn’t garner headlines,” he said.

It’s not just his low-profile approach to philanthropy that’s at issue. Like wealthy businessmen Al Checchi who failed in his 1998 gubernatorial bid against Davis and current New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Simon is a political neophyte. He not only has never held elected office before, but also never served on political commissions, as Riordan did in the late 1980s and early 1990s before seeking office.

Had he been named to a political commission, unless that commission were caught up in a huge controversy like the L.A. Police Commission is today, it would not have guaranteed him more local name recognition.

Republican political consultant and Riordan supporter Allan Hoffenblum said he had no idea who Riordan was when he first encountered him on the set of local cable host Bill Rosendahl’s “Week in Review,” back in early 1992.

“I just remember him as some older L.A. businessman who didn’t seem to be very smooth,” Hoffenblum said. “Sure he had served on a commission or two, but he was still quite anonymous to most folks, even to those like me who track politics.”