Bradley to Pick Topping for Key City Planning Job

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley is expected to name a top San Bernardino County official as head of the city’s Planning Department, a crucial City Hall post, at a news conference today, The Times has learned.

Kenneth Topping, 50, supervises planning and two other county departments as deputy administrator of development services in San Bernardino. He was selected for the Los Angeles job from a list of six finalists who included the city Planning Department’s deputy director and candidates from other major cities. He was rated first by a panel of professional planners, architects and homeowner groups’ representatives.

As director of planning, Topping would direct the staff that approves most development in the city and be a major figure--along with the Community Redevelopment Agency and the City Council--in shaping the future growth of Los Angeles.

Topping, whose selection was confirmed by sources in the Bradley Administration, would succeed Calvin Hamilton, the retiring director. Hamilton has exercised power over many of the building and development decisions in the city for 20 years.

Council Confirmation

The new appointee, who must be confirmed by the City Council, has local experience as a program coordinator for the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Department from 1957 to 1973. In an interview earlier this year, Topping said he was deeply involved in the approval of the county’s general plan for future development.

He became San Bernardino County planning director in 1973 and has held his current position since 1982.

Two of the finalists bypassed by Bradley are Los Angeles officials. Kei Uyeda is deputy director of planning, and Douglas Ford has been the mayor’s general manager of the Community Development Department since 1980.

Other top candidates for the post included the planning directors of Houston, Phoenix and Pittsburgh.

Council in Dark

Key City Council officials said Tuesday that they were unaware of Topping’s selection. Council President Pat Russell said Bradley had told her nothing about the selection. Councilman Howard Finn, chairman of the Council’s Planning and Environment Committee, said, “I just know that I’m supposed to go to the mayor’s office . . . to find out who it’s going to be.”

Informed that the selection was reported to be Topping, Finn said, “I just really don’t know that much about him.”

Hamilton announced last July that he planned to retire from the post that he held through a period of considerable change in the Los Angeles landscape that saw the city grow to the second-biggest in the nation.

Hamilton’s leadership had come under greater criticism in his final years, and he received added pressure to retire after it was disclosed that he used city staff to help promote a private, nonprofit trade and tourism group that he organized.