Gage Reportedly Will Take Channel 4 Job, Keep DWP Panel Post

Mike Gage, the former deputy mayor of Los Angeles and current head of the city Department of Water and Power Commission, will join the on-camera news staff of NBC affiliate Channel 4 in Los Angeles, sources told The Times on Wednesday.

Gage, who has no background in journalism, will work as a reporter or commentator, said Ted Stein, a city planning commissioner who hired Gage away from the mayor’s office a year ago and made him president of a San Fernando Valley construction firm. Gage left Stein’s company last month.

A sometimes vociferous critic of the press, clashing frequently with reporters during his 2 1/2 years as Mayor Tom Bradley’s chief deputy, Gage said Wednesday that he had been directed by station management not to comment.

KNBC spokeswoman Regina Miyamoto also would not respond to questions about Gage’s hiring, saying only that the station had no announcement to make.

Gage said he had no intention of resigning from the board. He has been active in controversial attempts to make the DWP more sensitive to environmental concerns.

“I do fully intend to serve on the commission no matter what my job may be next week,” Gage said. Asked about the potential of a conflict of interest, he said: “I trust that will be resolved.”

A source familiar with the negotiations said Gage will probably have “a highly specialized role reporting on a limited range of issues that have no connection whatsoever to the city of Los Angeles or city-related business.”

Mayor Tom Bradley is “enthusiastic” about Gage continuing to participate on the DWP board, Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said Wednesday. He said “the mayor’s view is that, if KNBC has resolved these issues, the mayor does not have a concern about them.”

Gage resigned as Bradley’s chief deputy in December, 1989, following a roller-coaster stint that saw him help revitalize Bradley’s political career, only to have the mayor plunge into the center of an ethics scandal involving personal and political finances. At the time he resigned, Gage said, “I would give myself a pretty decent grade in terms of strategy, and I’d probably give myself an F in terms of PR.”

Part of Gage’s public relations problems included frequent heated exchanges with reporters covering City Hall. Last year, he ordered a news boycott of the now-defunct Herald Examiner--denying its reporters routine press releases and interviews and refusing to return phone calls--in retaliation for its coverage of the mayor.

Gage also frequently voiced his disgust with Times reporters who covered the mayor.

“Based on the way you guys are acting at The Times, I’ve got no reason to sit down and be friendly with you (expletive),” Gage said during an interview last year following the city attorney’s investigation of Bradley.

One Bradley aide noted Wednesday that Gage will now be on the receiving end of tirades similar to the ones he unleashed at the press.

“This ought to be an interesting twist for the simple reason that here you got a guy who says ‘damn the press’ in one breath and then huffs and puffs for a TV contract,” said the aide, who asked not to be identified.

“He is going to find out very quickly that a lot of the things that he did to press people are going to be done to him. And he is not going to like it.”