City Council Setting Stage to Remove Ailing Lindsay : Politics: The councilman is paralyzed and unable to speak. Charter allows for declaring the seat vacant.

Under increasing pressure from frustrated community leaders, the Los Angeles City Council is setting the stage to remove ailing Councilman Gilbert Lindsay from the office he has held for 27 years.

Lindsay, who will turn 90 next week, suffered a stroke Sept. 2 that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak, according to aides and colleagues who have visited him at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood.

This month, Lindsay’s fellow council members quietly invoked a technicality in the city Charter and stopped excusing his absences from council meetings. The Charter allows a council member to be removed if he is absent from the city for 60 days or more without consent of the council.

If the situation remains unchanged, Lindsay by Jan. 1 will have been just outside the city limits--in Inglewood--for more than 60 days. The council could then call a special election to fill the seat for the two years remaining on Lindsay’s term, or place the opening on the ballot for the regular city election April 9.

“We’re just keeping our options open,” said City Council President John Ferraro, a longtime friend of Lindsay. Ferraro, like other council members, said he was reluctant to discuss the situation.

“All of us have a place in our heart for Gil Lindsay,” said Councilman Robert Farrell, “but the issue sparking discussion is whether there is active and present representation for the district.”

Lindsay’s 9th District encompasses the extremes of the city, from the gleaming skyscrapers of the downtown area to the crime-ridden slums of South-Central Los Angeles.

His condition, which has remained relatively unchanged since he entered the hospital, has left his district without a voice on the City Council or a leader with the power to move projects along or address local problems.

City officials say they can remember no instance in which a council member has been removed from office under such circumstances. In several instances when council members have been incapacitated, their offices have been placed under the control of the chief legislative analyst’s office, a support agency for the council.

Bob Gay, one of Lindsay’s deputies, had no comment on Lindsay’s removal or the question of who might succeed him.

Many City Hall sources said privately that Gay is a likely successor to Lindsay, and Gay has expressed interest in the office.

Ferraro put William R. McCarley, head of the analyst’s office, in charge of Lindsay’s office nearly two months ago. But with more than two years left in Lindsay’s term, leaders in the largely black district are questioning whether the analyst’s office and its largely white staff should remain in control.

Some community leaders met with McCarley at City Hall last week to express their concerns.

“I’ve had calls from several people in the community,” McCarley said Tuesday. “There is concern about whether there is going to be a special election. . . . There’s a concern that there’s no vote in (the) council.”

Community and church leaders from the district met privately Tuesday morning to discuss the situation, but it was not known whether they decided on a course of action. One source said the meeting would include discussion of a possible consensus candidate to run if Lindsay’s seat is vacated.

“It’s a matter of public record that the clock is ticking,” said Mark Ridley-Thomas, director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles. “The issue is what does (Lindsay’s absence) mean to critical council votes.”

Ridley-Thomas and other community leaders raised questions before Lindsay’s recent stroke about whether his age and health problems had made it impossible for him to concentrate on his job.

Lindsay became the first black city councilman in the city’s history when he was appointed to fill a vacancy in 1963. He has won reelection handily ever since and is credited with presiding over a rebirth of the downtown area.

Some who have visited Lindsay in recent weeks said he seems to recognize them, but others say they cannot tell if he understands what is going on around him. If he wished to resign, he apparently would be incapable of doing so, aides say.

Ferraro, who was allowed to visit two weeks ago, said he was unsure whether Lindsay recognized him.

Lindsay’s stepson, Herbert Howard, allows almost no visitors, a situation that complicates council attempts to decide on a course of action.

“We haven’t heard from his doctor and we can’t visit him on a regular basis to see whether or not he responds to us,” said Councilman Nate Holden, who saw Lindsay briefly with Ferraro. On that visit, Holden said, Lindsay squeezed his hand and seemed to recognize him.

Before the council takes any action, Holden said, a representative of the city attorney’s office should be allowed to visit Lindsay and ask him to respond with a gesture or a squeeze of the hand if he wishes to resign.

Whatever the political outcome, Holden and others are voicing anger over the virtual ban on visitors.

“He should not be left alone,” Holden said. “I think he deserves a better way out.”

Howard, Lindsay’s stepson, said Tuesday that he limits visitors because the councilman requested the restrictions a number of years ago, when his wife, Theresa, fell terminally ill. “If people can’t live with that, it’s their problem,” Howard said.

He quoted Lindsay as saying, “If I’m ever in that condition, I don’t want a whole lot of people coming in, except those you think I would want to see.”

Emma McFarlin, a longtime council aide and friend of Lindsay, said she has seen him only once since he was hospitalized. She said that he squeezed her hand and “there was such a pleading look in his eyes.

“Knowing this person as I do, I know he would like to have visitors,” McFarlin added.

Arthur Snyder, a lobbyist and former councilman, said he was disturbed that he was not allowed to visit Lindsay and by “the very idea of him lying there alone, imprisoned inside his body.

“Gil Lindsay is one of the most social men who ever lived,” Snyder said.