Richard Riordan (1 May 1930-19 April 2023) was the Republican Mayor of Los Angeles from 1 July 1993 to 1 July 2001, succeeding Tom Bradley and preceding James Hahn.
Biography[]
Richard Riordan was born in Flushing, Queens in 1930, and he was raised in New Rochelle, New York. He became an attorney in Los Angeles in 1956 after fighting in the Korean War, and he served as Mayor from 1993 to 2001, having promised to increase the size of the Los Angeles Police Department and streamline business regulations. The Bus Riders Union protested against his plans to divert city funding from its buses - which were cheaper and were utilized by the city's poorer residents - to the construction of the Los Angeles Metro's Red Line. In 2002, he ran for Governor as a moderate Republican, but he lost the GOP primary to Bill Simon. He died in Brentwood in 2023.