Charter Reform Panels’ Leaders Reach Accord

Leaders of the city’s two charter commissions have reached a compromise on the most divisive issue separating the two panels, the question of whether Los Angeles’ mayor should have the unfettered power to fire city department heads or whether the City Council should play a role in those decisions.

The proposed compromise is thick with potential ramifications. If it is approved by a conference committee today and by both commissions in the coming weeks, it would be the most important step yet in the effort to present voters with a single reformed charter rather than two competing proposals, which some observers see as a recipe for defeat.

In a memo sent to members of the commissions Wednesday, Erwin Chemerinsky, chairman of the elected panel, and George Kieffer, who heads the appointed group, endorsed a deal that would allow the mayor to fire general managers but also give them the right to appeal their dismissals to the City Council, which could overrule the mayor by a two-thirds majority.

The same rules would apply to members of city commissions and to the heads of the city’s so-called proprietary departments, which oversee the airport, the water and power system and the harbor.

“I’m comfortable with what we’re developing as a conference committee,” Kieffer said. Asked whether he was prepared to vote for the compromise charter over the work of his own commission, he answered: “If that meant that we could come forward with a unified charter, yes.”

Chemerinsky was slightly more circumspect, but said he too believes the best chance for winning support for a new City Charter is for both commissions to agree on a common document. He added, however: “I think that ultimately both commissions have a difficult choice to make,” whether to approve a compromise or stick with their original recommendations.

Indeed, some influential participants in the charter debate now have all but abandoned interest in a unified charter reform proposal. Mayor Richard Riordan and his closest advisors are urging the elected commission to reject a compromise document and instead are prepared to fight for approval of the elected panel’s draft essentially as written. Riordan, his closest confidant, lawyer Bill Wardlaw, and others are lobbying elected commissioners to vote against any compromise, particularly if it waters down the mayor’s ability to fire department managers, and already have begun to contemplate a campaign for next year.

On Wednesday, Deputy Mayor Noelia Rodriguez said that administration officials were not satisfied with the compromise hammered out by the two commission chairmen. “From the mayor’s perspective . . . this would obliterate the hope of accountability in city government, especially where it comes to the authority to remove general managers.”

Alternative to Accord Is Complex Campaign

If the two commissions cannot reach an agreement, the campaign promises to be a complicated one with extremely high stakes. Political consultant Bill Carrick, who often works with Wardlaw and who ran Riordan’s reelection campaign in 1997, is considered a likely prospect to head the campaign for the elected panel’s charter. It is less clear who would run the appointed group’s campaign.

Riordan would bring money--the multimillionaire mayor has said he will contribute to the campaign for the elected commission’s proposal if it remains substantially as it is now written--and would probably be joined by at least one wing of organized labor. The appointed commission would probably have the support of the City Council and might also win the endorsement of city workers, whose leading union generally has resisted efforts to bolster mayoral power.

The city’s downtown business community, normally a strong supporter of Riordan, would face a difficult choice because the elected commission has voted to include language in its charter proposal guaranteeing a living wage to workers at companies with city contracts. Some business leaders strongly oppose that idea, which enjoys equally strong labor backing.

Voters, meanwhile, would face a dizzying possibility: the largest ballot pamphlet in Los Angeles history, one that could be hundreds of pages thick if it includes two separate charter proposals.

Nevertheless, Riordan and other critics of the appointed commission’s work say the city’s only chance for significant charter reform lies in approval of the elected commission’s package. The key difference, they say, is that under the appointed commission’s proposal or the proposed compromise package, the city’s mayor will not get the ability to exercise direct control over city departments because department heads could court council support and use it to thwart any attempt to fire them.

Riordan has been joined by two council members, Joel Wachs and Richard Alatorre, as well as Richard Alarcon, who recently left the council to assume a seat in the California state Senate. But the mayor is vehemently opposed by City Council President John Ferraro, City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie and leaders of some city employee unions.

Opponents of the mayor’s position argue that giving the mayor the power to fire department heads without any council check would concentrate too much authority in the mayor’s office and turn city general managers into political pawns.

The resulting debate has proved to be the most contentious of the charter reform process, eclipsing such early fights as the structure for neighborhood councils and the appropriate size of the City Council. In fact, the conference committee already has approved compromises on some of those once controversial areas, recommending, for instance, creation of a network of advisory councils overseen by an office of neighborhood empowerment.

Today, the committee is expected to consider another controversial set of proposals, those affecting recall of city officials. The two commissions arrived at substantially different recommendations in that area, and the two chairmen are now recommending that neither commission’s suggestions be adopted. Although that may win approval by the conference committee, it too could create the possibility of the elected commission rejecting the entire compromise package, as several elected commissioners felt strongly about their recommendations.

One area that continues to divide the chairmen is the topic of how large a City Council to recommend. The appointed commission advocated increasing the council from 15 to 21 members, while the elected panel voted to have its main charter recommend leaving the council at its current size but also to give city voters an option to add 10 council seats.

Chemerinsky and Kieffer proposed a compromise that would have the main charter recommend 21 members but allow voters to opt instead for 15. That idea has run into opposition, however, and the two chairmen said in their memo Wednesday that they need more time to keep working on it.