Richard Riordan, Former Los Angeles Mayor, Dies at 92

Richard Riordan, a wealthy Republican businessman who served two terms as Los Angeles mayor and guided the city through the Northridge earthquake and recovery from deadly 1992 riots, has died. He was 92 years old.

“Mayor Richard Riordan loved Los Angeles and dedicated a lot of himself to bettering our city,” Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement Wednesday night. “I extend my deepest condolences to everyone who loved and admired Mayor Riordan. May he rest in peace.”

A statement from Riordan’s family, dated Wednesday, announced the death of a “beloved husband, father, grandfather and uncle.” The statement said he died at his home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood “surrounded by his wife Elizabeth, family, friends and precious dogs.”

There was no immediate word on the cause of death.

Riordan, a moderate who made a fortune as an investment broker, has the distinction of being the last Republican mayor in what is now a solidly Democratic city.

As mayor, Riordan earned a national reputation as a mild-mannered city leader who despised government bureaucracy. He was sometimes prone to verbal gaffes, but seemed to endear himself to many residents of a city often indifferent to the scrum of local politics.

He surprised even his longtime colleagues when, well into his 60s, he abandoned his success in the private sector in 1993 to run for mayor as an outsider.

Riordan said he saw a need for leadership in a city still rocked by the 1992 riots that followed the acquittal of white officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, a black motorist.

He applied on the promise that he was “strong enough to go around Los Angeles.” He spent $6 million of his own money on the campaign, defeating city councilman Michael Woo in the nonpartisan election to replace outgoing mayor Tom Bradley.

The Los Angeles Police Department tweeted that Riordan was “a true leader and advocate for the people.”

Riordan’s long career also included serving 17 months as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Secretary of Education.

He was credited with playing a leading role in changing the City Charter to strengthen the power of the mayor’s office, something he said was necessary to create accountability in Los Angeles’ decentralized system of government. He also helped elect reformers to the school board, a body over which he had no direct control.

Test scores rose under the policies of the new Riordan-backed school board majority, and he called that his proudest achievement as mayor.

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