The Fall of Ken Topping From Grace

A crucial event in the fall of Ken Topping as Los Angeles city planning director occurred just over two years ago, in August, 1988.

That was when Jane Blumenfeld, a city planner, left Topping’s department to go to work for Mayor Tom Bradley and assumed a leading role in the public relations campaign to recast the mayor’s image from pro-growth to slow-growth.

The rise of Blumenfeld, the fall of Topping and the influence of the Bradley image-makers constitute an illuminating look at the political forces at work in a city that continues to grow with almost total disregard for its fragile environment or the people who live here.

Topping had supervised planning in San Bernardino County, in the heart of fast-growth country, before taking the Los Angeles job in 1986. He’s a friendly man of 55, with a soft-spoken approach, more suited to academia than the rough infighting of L.A. City Hall. When Topping arrived, he seemed like one of those career bureaucrats who knew how to go along and get along.

But things moved too fast. In 1988, after Topping had been on the job for just two years, the slow-growth movement had taken hold in Westside and San Fernando Valley neighborhoods. The council was unglued by it. Members mouthed public platitudes about controlling development. But they didn’t give Topping a clear signal. Privately, council members continued to nag the Planning Department to expedite huge construction projects in their districts.

Bradley, facing a mayoral election challenge from born-again slow growther Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, went his own way, divorcing himself from council politics and ignoring Topping.

Looking for help in reshaping his boss to fit the new slow-growth style, hardball-playing Deputy Mayor Mike Gage reached into the Planning Department and hired Jane Blumenfeld.

Like Topping, Blumenfeld has the look of the college campus about her, a serious person with no frills in speech or dress. She had a lot of ideas about growth control. And she had enough political smarts to be able to help the mayor beat up Yaroslavsky on key development issues.

If Topping was alarmed to see himself eclipsed in the mayor’s circle before the election, imagine what he thought afterward.

The biggest development proposal in the city’s history, Porter Ranch, a residential and commercial project in the far northern San Fernando Valley, was racing toward council approval, pushed along by Councilman Hal Bernson.

It was criticized by pollution experts as contributing to air and water pollution, and was regarded by slow-growthers as an outrage. But accustomed to buckling under pressure from council members, Topping’s department supported the project.

Then Topping was left dangling when Blumenfeld persuaded Bradley to insist on some changes. Even though they were small, it was a political plus for the mayor. Topping had become irrelevant to Bradley and vulnerable to damage inflicted by his foes--and by himself.

Staff members in City Council offices and in the department say Topping hurt himself by being a weak administrator. To survive as a manager in City Hall, you’ve got to be tough. Council members pushed Topping around. They bombarded the department with special requests. Work piled up.

Meanwhile, influential developers--influential because of their campaign contributions--complained that they had to endure expensive delays for approval of even non-controversial projects. Their case was made to the council and the mayor by a real City Hall power, land developer-lobbyist Dan Garcia, a former Planning Commission member--and Bradley’s newest appointment to the Police Commission.

Tired of the pressure, Topping quit. When I talked to him Tuesday, he seemed relieved. He talked about the difficulties of his job, working for 16 bosses--15 council members and the mayor. But even under those circumstances, he said, his department had pushed through important legislation in controlling development. “My guys showed real guts,” he said.

Now, the current deputy mayor, Mark Fabiani, says Bradley’s looking for a new planning chief with guts--or at least independent enough to say no to the mayor, the council and assorted lobbyists. Blumenfeld, now a power in the mayor’s office, will no doubt help in the search.

Good luck to the new planning director, and a little advice: The city already has a department head who likes to say no, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates. And I don’t think the mayor would be unhappy if he quit.

But that’s another column.