Council Spikes Ballot Effort on Hiring, Firing

After heavy lobbying by Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday reversed itself and decided against asking voters to make it easier to fire and discipline department general managers.

The 7-6 roll call fell one vote shy of the needed majority on the 15-member council to place the proposal on the June ballot. City Council President John Ferraro switched positions on the measure, saying that it would “take away the influence that commissioners have on the general managers” and “destroy the commission system.” Ferraro served on the Los Angeles Police Commission before his appointment to the council in 1966.

On Feb. 3, Ferraro had sided with proponents of the measure in a narrow 8-4 vote to place the proposal on the ballot.

Gates, who had lobbied Ferraro, was on hand for the vote and said afterward that there was a “taint of arrogance” on the part of those who “keep trying to push down the throats of the people of the city of Los Angeles something that they have said four times that they do not want.”

Actually, city voters have rejected the proposal three times--in 1980, 1983 and 1984. Had the latest version been approved for the ballot and passed by voters, it would have removed future general managers in the city’s 31 departments from the Civil Service system. The system provides job protection to most city employees.

The proposed amendment would have established an “executive service,” in which the mayor and the City Council would have had more flexibility in the hiring, firing and disciplining of department heads.

Under current City Charter provisions, the council and mayor have little or no direct power to punish errant general managers, because of strict Civil Service protections.

The latest attempt followed two nasty controversies in which former general managers Sylvia Cunliffe of General Services and Fred Croton of Cultural Affairs faced dismissal. Cunliffe eventually agreed to retire, and Croton resigned. Council members said after the department heads left that a better system was needed.

Several council members had indicated that they might support the proposal if it had exempted five departments that are run by commissions: Water and Power, Airport, Harbor, Fire and Police. But proponents of the original measure did not want to compromise.

“We have had this on the ballot previously with all of the departments,” said Councilwoman Joy Picus after the vote. “To exempt those departments is to succumb to pressure.”

‘Another Crisis’

Picus said, “The issue is dead until we have another crisis, and then we resurrect it. (The vote) says to me that the memory of Sylvia Cunliffe is very short-lived.”

Gates said he had encouraged several of his top assistants to lobby council members.

“(The proposed measure) says the chief of police, for example, takes direction from the Board of Police Commissioners that (would have) no power over his appointment, no power to do anything about (him) if he thumbs his nose at the Police Commission,” Gates said. “(That) violates all principles of good management and of good administration.”

Tuesday’s vote was to approve the final ballot wording for the measure. The deadline to place it on the ballot is Friday.