Williams’ Choice of Official Car Criticized

The Los Angeles Police Commission has upbraided Police Chief Willie L. Williams for purchasing a more expensive official car than police officials normally drive, a decision that commissioners said was unfortunate given the department’s many financial needs and one that appeared to send “an inappropriate message both inside and outside the department.”

In a letter stamped “personal and confidential,” Commission Vice President Art Mattox informed Williams that he and other board members had concerns about Williams’ purchase of a Chrysler New Yorker, which replaced a Ford Crown Victoria--the type of car driven by most top LAPD officials.

“At a time when areas of the department like [the] Scientific Investigation Division are in dire need of significant financial assistance, every budgetary dollar must be responsibly managed and accounted for,” Mattox wrote in the letter, dated Feb. 13 and obtained by The Times on Monday. “The upgrade of a vehicle that will be utilized only for the benefit of the chief of police seems to send an inappropriate message both inside and outside the department.”

The chief’s new car has touched off some grumbling in the ranks--and more is likely after a picture of the burgundy, four-door sedan appears in an upcoming issue of the Thin Blue Line, the publication of the Police Protective League.

“Some policemen are sensitive to it,” said league President Cliff Ruff, who added that he does not begrudge the chief his new vehicle. “I don’t get upset that the chief drives a good car,” Ruff said. “I think he should drive a nice car.”

Other league members and police officers agreed that the chief was entitled to certain perks with his job, but some expressed unhappiness with his decision to buy a more expensive new car at the same time that officers are being asked to live with difficult conditions. Many of the city’s police stations are rundown, and some officers drive aging clunkers.

In the LAPD bomb squad, for instance, six cars have been driven more than 100,000 miles, and one had 191,000 miles as of Jan. 31, according to Police Department documents. Williams’ previous official car was a 1992 Crown Victoria with 72,000 miles.

The LAPD typically rotates new cars through the ranks, but in 1992, the same year that Williams was hired, new car purchases were rare. Faced with a shortage of new cars, Williams directed that no command staff member could receive a new car until 1996, a promise that the department and its chief kept. Now that the Police Department is receiving more new vehicles, Williams elected to move up from his 1992 car this year.

Dennis Zine, a director of the rank-and-file police union, said the purchase sent the wrong signal to working officers.

“Why should he be eating filet mignon when everybody else is eating hamburger?” Zine asked. “He’s in a limousine. We’re in go-carts.”

Williams was out of the office Monday and unavailable to respond directly to requests for comment. But through an aide, the chief said he disagreed with Mattox’s letter and stressed that he passed on getting a new car for years.

“No one has worked harder to get new equipment for the officers of the Los Angeles Police Department,” Williams’ adjutant said after speaking with the chief. “And the vehicle that was selected is only a few thousand dollars more than the ones purchased for other members of the command staff.”

In addition, some of Williams’ backers said the flap reveals more about the commission than the chief. They accused the panel of trying to “micromanage” the chief and suggested that the board would better spend its time examining Police Department policy issues than intervening in disputes about a single car.

Commissioners, however, said they were bothered by the purchase, both because of its timing and its symbolism. In his letter to the chief, Mattox said the purchase was especially unfortunate because it came in the same week that the LAPD was undergoing its budget hearings, sessions at which the department lobbied for additional resources from a pinched city government.

According to sources, the commission did not reprimand Williams for the selection, but the board’s misgivings about the chief’s decision join a growing list of topics that have pitted the commissioners and Williams against each other over issues involving the chief’s judgment. Williams’ annual personnel evaluation is nearly complete, and sources said it may address his judgment, along with his ability to meet goals set by the board.

In recent months, commissioners were bothered by Williams’ decision to ask an LAPD captain to help the chief’s lawyer perform research on gangs, information that the attorney was seeking in connection with a lawsuit that she was pursuing against the Los Angeles Unified School District. Some commissioners also are worried that Williams mishandled a paid trip to Berlin to speak at a conference there; the circumstances of that trip and the question of whether Williams was within his rights to accept free plane tickets from the event’s sponsors remain under review.

Those are only the most recent disputes between the chief and the five-member civilian board, a litany that includes questions about Williams’ effectiveness as chief and a sharp dispute about his truthfulness during an investigation of trips he took to Las Vegas and accommodations he accepted from a casino there.

Herbert F. Boeckmann, a commission member, declined to comment Monday on any specifics regarding the chief’s evaluation, but he said the car purchase had troubled him and other board members.

“We were sitting there figuring out how to save dollars, and we see this,” Boeckmann said. “It struck the commissioners as inappropriate. It certainly struck me that way.”

Boeckmann, who runs a car dealership, said he did not know precisely how much the chief’s car cost. But Boeckmann said that in general a New Yorker costs several thousand dollars more than a Crown Victoria.

Consumer guides indicate that a Chrysler New Yorker, the cheaper of two related models of that car, retails for about $27,300. A Ford Crown Victoria retails for about $20,955. Those prices are not necessarily what the city would pay for the vehicles, but they do generally indicate the difference in value between those two types of cars.

Williams was the only LAPD officer to receive a Chrysler New Yorker this year. Other senior officers sometimes are allowed to select a color for their vehicle but are not allowed to pick a make or model.

Aides to Williams pointed out that retired Chief Daryl F. Gates drove a more expensive car than the ones used by other LAPD officers.

In past controversies involving the commission, Williams has vigorously complained about the release of other confidential documents relating to him.

In this case, however, commissioners say they believe that Williams himself shared the confidential letter with members of his staff.

Mattox declined to elaborate on his letter to Williams beyond saying that he was dismayed when subordinates to the chief called him to complain about the rebuke, even though Mattox said he had taken pains only to discuss it with Williams.

“It concerns me that a document marked ‘personal and confidential’ was brought to my attention by subordinates of Chief Williams,” Mattox said.

Commission President Deirdre Hill, who was absent on the day that the car issue was discussed by the board, nevertheless said that members of Williams’ staff also mentioned it to her and that she was surprised that he apparently had shared the confidential document with them. Some of those staff members objected to the letter, which they portrayed as improper commission meddling in the chief’s affairs.

“It gives me concern that this would be aired publicly to the extent that it might appear to be nit-picking,” Hill said. “But the commissioners cannot be inhibited in their discussions with the chief.”

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Sticker Shock

Police Chief Willie L. Williams has come under fire from the Police Commission for buying a Chrysler New Yorker as his official car- rather than a less expensive Ford Crown Victoria. The panel says it sends a bad message to a department struggling to make ends meet.

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History of Controversy

The flap over William’s car is just the latest flare- up in his relationship with his bosses at the commission.

* May 1994: Commissioners critize in writing what they poerceive as problems with his management of the LAPD, finding that “often you seem unable to move the department, to have your decisions understood and followed in a timely manner, if at all.”

* December 1994: Commission president warns Williams about his use of compensatory and vacation time.

* May 1995: Commissioners reprimand Williams, who they believed lied to them about accepting free rooms from a Las Vegas casino. The City Council later overturns he reprimand.

* November 1995: Williams goes to Berlin for a conference, a trip which he was reimbursed by a media organization. Questions have arisen as to whether reimbursement for the pair of first- class tickets violated ethics rules limiting gifts to officials.

* December 1995: Commissioners reveiw William’s request to an LAPD captain to provide information to Melanie Lomax, the chief’s lawyer. Lomax says she had neither solicited nor received confidential information. Commissioners find no violation of LAPD rules, but some question the chief’s judgement.