City Hall Power Struggle Delays CRA Confirmations

A squabble over the home addresses of prospective Community Redevelopment Agency commissioners exploded Wednesday into full-scale combat over who wields the power at Los Angeles City Hall.

Some City Council members attacked Mayor Richard Riordan’s record of appointing commissioners; they in turn were accused by some colleagues of holding qualified nominees hostage to extort concessions from the mayor.

The fiery debate ended in a stinging rebuke to Riordan: yet another delay for the nominees’ confirmation hearing and a new council committee that will meet within the next week to discuss their priorities for commission appointments.

But those drab bureaucratic tidbits belie long-simmering discontent between the liberal wing of the 15-member council and the Republican, millionaire mayor who was elected in 1993 in part because he was a City Hall outsider.

“We’re just saying this thing is out of control. The council is a partner in this organization,” Councilman Nate Holden said, calling the commission fight the most important issue he has confronted during a quarter of a century in politics.

“We’re talking about who’s going to represent us. We can have a strong mayor, but we don’t want a dictator up there, either.”

The current controversy dates back to last fall, when council members tried to establish a pro-affirmative-action litmus test for commissioners, grilling several nominees about their views and forcing one appointee to resign.

The debate over diversity has taken a different turn with the CRA, as several council members have said that board members should live in the city neighborhoods where the redevelopment projects are planned, particularly South-Central Los Angeles.

Caught in the middle Wednesday were the four pending CRA nominees, four women--one Latina, one African American, one Asian American and one white--who live in San Pedro, Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley.

Although many lawmakers praised the diversity and qualifications of the four nominees, some have demanded that at least one CRA commissioner live in South-Central, where many of the agency’s new projects are located.

During an hourlong debate before the contentious 8-5 vote that moved the confirmation hearings to Feb. 9, Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. warned that redevelopment could “grind to a halt” if the nominations were postponed, and that the city’s ability to get qualified volunteers for commission posts could be forever compromised by the ugly fight in council chambers.

And Marvin Braude, the council’s senior member, called Wednesday’s action a threat to democracy itself.

“If you don’t like the system, change the system. If you don’t like the mayor’s appointments, change the mayor,” said Braude, whose district has the second-highest number of commissioners, 38.

“Everyone is saying it has nothing to do with these particular commissioners, so why are we holding them up? To embarrass the mayor?”

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter invited Riordan to attend the session, but the mayor declined. He sent his chief of staff, Robin Kramer, and a letter about the appointment process.

Kramer was silent during the heated debate, though it largely focused on her boss. After the vote was cast to hold up his nominations, she expressed confidence that his nominees eventually would be approved.

“Democracy is a human business, it has all the delights and frailties of a human business,” Kramer said.

“But there’s a separation of powers here [at City Hall]. There’s a mechanism in place to deal with this [commission appointments].”

The City Charter dictates that the mayor appoints people to the city’s 250 commission posts, which handle everything from the harbor to housing to human relations. But commissioners cannot be seated without council confirmation.

The overriding concern that delayed the confirmation vote Wednesday was whether Riordan respects council members’ perspectives when making key decisions.

Vowing not to confirm any commissioners until the council had a chance to present its views to the mayor, Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg said: “You need to use leverage or you simply concede that you’re not going to get into the game.”

The mayor’s office and the five council members who voted against the delay--Svorinich, Braude, Hal Bernson, Joel Wachs and council President John Ferraro--all emphasized the high quality of the current CRA nominees, the diversity of Riordan’s appointees overall and the mayor’s prerogative to pick whomever he likes for commissions.

In his letter, Riordan said his current team of commissioners is 54% white, 17% black, 20% Latino, 7% Asian and 45% female.

“They are a diverse and representative group of leaders,” he wrote, “who demonstrate a great love for the city.”

Ferraro will chair a special committee of Galanter, Holden and Councilman Richard Alarcon to address the criteria for commission appointments.