Compton’s Family Ties: Some See Favoritism, Others a Well-Run City

When City Manager Laverta S. Montgomery was fired last fall, city workers thought it signaled the end of what they saw as a pattern of favoritism in municipal hiring and promotion.

But in the 10 months since James C. Goins took over, they say, things have only gotten worse.

After the City Council gave Goins the $79,000-a-year city manager’s post without competition, he promoted or gave top jobs to:

- Councilman Robert L. Adams’ son, Laurence.

- The younger Adams’ close friend and former business partner, Paul H. Richards.

- City Atty. Wesley Fenderson Jr.’s wife, Sheila, who, despite her lack of the required college education, was made parks and recreation director over an Olympic gold medalist with a master’s degree.

All of this has rekindled allegations of nepotism and croynism that were first raised by city workers during Montgomery’s term. Instead of setting a different course, workers contend, the new city manager has only continued a frustrating City Hall tradition.

“The rank and file are wholly upset with what they see happening around them,” said Yvonne Day, president of the union representing city professional, technical and clerical employees. “Morale is at an all-time low.”

Lack of Independence

Councilman Maxcy D. Filer believes that by putting Adams’ son and his close friend in “key positions”--Adams is interim redevelopment director and Richards is an assistant city manager--Goins has demonstrated his lack of independence.

“That means that (councilmen) Bob Adams and Floyd James and (Mayor) Walt Tucker run the city,” Filer charged. He said the three often vote as a bloc--as they did to hire Goins as city manager, a job that pays him $28,000 more than what he earned as a department head under Montgomery.

Goins counters that his promotion of Adams and appointments of Richards and Fenderson were entirely justified. He says none of his personnel decisions have involved favoritism.

“I picked the people who I thought could do the best job,” Goins said last week.

Said Councilman Adams: “I haven’t spoken to Jim Goins or anyone directly about my son.” He added that although he supports the city manager’s decision to give top jobs to his son and Richards, “if me being on the City Council would impede their lives, I would step down.

“President Kennedy, he appointed his brother as attorney general,” Adams said.

Goins acknowledges that employing relatives at City Hall--a practice discouraged by most governments--has long been routine in Compton, where 93 of the 732 city workers, or 12.7%, are linked by blood or marriage.

How that compares to other cities is unclear. Several state and national government associations say they keep no relevant statistics.

Fewer in Downey, Carson

In two neighboring cities of similar population, however, the number of relatives on the payroll is dramatically fewer. In Downey, about six of 437 city employees (1.3%) are related, as are 32 of 705 employees (4.5%) in Carson, spokesmen said.

Although employing relatives isn’t illegal, the Los Angeles County Grand Jury criticized Hawthorne city leaders in 1985 for using nepotism to put 10 “relatives, family members, friends or former business associates” on the roughly 325-member full-time staff. Afterward, officials passed a policy against hiring any kin of council members or the city manager.

Compton has an anti-nepotism policy, too, but it isn’t an outright ban. Instead, it permits anyone’s relatives to be hired as long as the decision is based on their “merit or ability.”

When city workers complain about Compton’s family ties, they now point in particular to three recent cases:

- Laurence H. Adams, the 31-year-old son of Councilman Adams.

When he was hired by a Montgomery assistant in 1985, he had just finished working as treasurer of his father’s successful reelection campaign. Adams was made an “unclassified” employee--not required to take a Civil Service test--and given a project manager’s post in the Community Redevelopment Agency.

At the time, Councilman Filer branded the hiring as nepotism and complained that existing city workers had not been allowed to compete for the job.

When Goins took over, he made Adams a “special assistant” to the city manager and, a few months later, interim redevelopment director upon the previous director’s retirement.

Now Adams deals daily with many of the same developers, attorneys and business leaders from whom he has solicited campaign contributions for his father in recent years.

But Adams said last week that his father has exercized “no influence . . . whatsoever” over his employment. “I can’t help the fact that I’m related to Councilman Adams. That’s just a fact of nature that is irreversible.”

“Uniquely Qualified”

Adams said his “understanding of public finance” and the city itself makes him “uniquely qualified” for his job. In the late 1970s, he earned a bachelor’s degree in public administration and also did work toward a master’s.

Adams said he has stopped raising money for his father’s campaign since joining Goins’ staff last December.

- Paul H. Richards, a close friend and former business partner of Laurence Adams.

At 31, Richards has a law degree as well as a master’s degree in public administration. He is also mayor of neighboring Lynwood, having won election last year with the aid of $13,000 in loans from Councilman Adams’ campaign.

Richards and the councilman’s son were boyhood friends; when he was student body president at Compton High School in 1974, Adams served as his “commissioner of public relations.” Richards said the two have also had “mutual business interests.”

Richards was hired by the council in the summer of 1985 to fill the newly created--now vacant--post of council “chief of staff.” Like Adams, he was made an “unclassified” employee not required to take a Civil Service test.

Filer and Councilwoman Jane D. Robbins felt the position was unnecessary and opposed Richards’ hiring. But they lost 3 to 2 to Adams, James and Tucker.

Major Role

When Goins took over, Richards was made Assistant City Manager for Community Development and Public Policy. Instead of merely advising the council, he now plays a major role in deciding what issues come before the group, particularly in redevelopment matters.

On April 28, for example, Richards recommended that the council hire Cranston Securities--a firm that includes prominent developer Danny Bakewell--to underwrite a multimillion-dollar bond refunding. The selection was approved 3 to 0. Filer and Robbins abstained, explaining that they had accepted recent campaign contributions from Bakewell and wanted to avoid any appearance of conflict even though they could have legally voted.

But as he recommended Cranston, Richards failed to follow the councilmembers’ lead, never mentioning that he had received $1,500 from the firm five months earlier during his race for the Lynwood mayor’s post. Such a disclosure wasn’t legally required.

“The Cranston firm is a qualified firm,” Richards said last week, “and I didn’t receive any personal contribution.” The Cranston money went to his “separate” Citizens for Richards campaign committee.

Richards said neither Councilman Adams nor Adams’ son used their influence to help him get his city position. “I think if you compare my experience and credentials with anybody from any city,” he said, “I think they’d compare well.”

- Sheila Juniel Fenderson, wife of the city attorney.

Fenderson, who joined the city staff before marrying its elected chief legal officer, had been an administrative assistant to Goins in his previous job as director of parks and recreation. When Goins moved on to be city manager, he left Fenderson as his interim replacement.

Competitive Testing

Goins decided that the permanent director should be chosen through a competitive testing process. But he allowed Fenderson to undergo the mostly oral evaluation even though she lacked the stated minimum qualifications of “a bachelor’s degree . . . with major work in recreation, physical education, business or public administration or a related field.” Fenderson doesn’t have any bachelor’s degree, officials say.

After she and other applicants were screened by two experts from outside the city, Fenderson was ranked at the top--ahead of Ulis C. Williams, a Compton Community College dean who has a master’s degree in urban studies and was a member of the mile-relay team that set a world record at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.

“I had a sense that there was some pre-planned activity” in the hiring process, Williams said last week, but he declined to elaborate.

Goins’ action so angered the city’s independent Personnel Board that they recommended 3 to 1 to void Fenderson’s selection and repeat the hiring process. Goins refused and gave Fenderson the job. Filer later complained that the screening process used in such cases is frequently too “subjective.”

Neither Fenderson nor her husband returned several calls for comment.

“I think she’s well qualified,” Goins said, adding that the evaluation that Fenderson and the other candidates went through was “a legitimate process.”

By not enforcing the job’s educational requirements, Goins said, “we allowed everybody to compete who was in the parks and recreation department. . . .We opened it up to everybody in the city.”

“I’m sure that some people could say that (the personnel decisions involving Adams, Richards and Fenderson at least appear questionable),” Goins said. “I guess anyone could speculate on anything.”

‘Works 16 Hours a Day’

But Goins said “the truth of the matter is” he only knows Adams through his job performance over the past two years--”the fellow works 16 hours a day.” Furthermore, Goins said, no one can argue with Richards’ extensive education or the fact that the decision to promote Fenderson was supported by the independent experts who evaluated her.

Goins said he nevertheless is sensitive to the feelings of city workers. To insure fairness in the future, he said he has directed that new employees pass through the Civil Service system and not be placed in the exempted “unclassified” service.

Designed to hold top managers and a few “special or temporary employees” needed for no more than 90 days, the “unclassified” system has often been used to keep people on the payroll indefinitely--at least one “unclassifed” worker has been with the city for a decade.

In Personnel Board hearings last year, administrators acknowledged that 90 of Compton’s 169 “unclassified” employees--53%--were placed in that category in ways that violated City Charter provisions. The council continues to debate whether to require these workers take tests or simply grant them Civil Service status.