Buyout Pact With CRA Chief Brings a Storm of Criticism : Politics: City Council members denounce John Tuite’s $765,325 severance deal. It could prompt a council attempt to take over the redevelopment agency.

Strong opposition has erupted to the $765,325 severance package approved for John Tuite, departing director of the Community Redevelopment Agency, and some City Hall officials were predicting this week that the huge payout will provoke the Los Angeles City Council to take over the agency.

The deal, approved Friday by the CRA board, has prompted unusually harsh denunciations in city politics.

City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said this week that Tuite had “prostituted” himself by accepting the money and accused Mayor Tom Bradley and the CRA board of behaving like “Sunset Boulevard tricks.”

City Council President John Ferraro said the deal made him “sick.”

The vast CRA presides over hundreds of millions of dollars worth of construction and consulting contracts for development projects throughout the city. It is semi-independent from the City Council.

City officials said this week that the council apparently lacks the authority to cancel the agreement with Tuite, but Ferraro and City Councilwoman Gloria Molina said they will call for investigations.

Yaroslavsky said he will make a renewed call this week for the City Council to take over the CRA. Similar motions have failed by narrow margins in recent years, but Yaroslavsky said the “outrage” over the Tuite pact should swing enough votes.

Bradley’s office and the CRA board--all Bradley appointees--negotiated the agreement under which Tuite will step down as head of the powerful urban renewal agency in return for an unprecedented buyout. Tuite was paid $147,000 a year and has more than two years left on his contract.

Bradley, through a spokesman, declined comment Tuesday on criticism of the agreement. Efforts to reach Tuite were unsuccessful.

Publicly, Bradley and board members have praised Tuite’s performance as head of the agency. But privately, sources said Bradley’s staff has been trying to force Tuite out for months in a dispute over his commitment to building affordable housing, which Bradley supports.

“This is an obscene settlement,” Yaroslavsky said. “This guy is not going to do anything for this money. . . . I am shocked that he would allow himself to be so prostituted and that the mayor and the redevelopment agency would behave like Sunset Boulevard tricks.”

Yaroslavsky accused Bradley of removing Tuite in order to replace him with someone “more pliable” and responsive to Bradley’s wishes.

“This is not about developing affordable housing,” Yaroslavsky said. “This is about getting some control over the issuance of contracts and patronage . . . in a direct political sense.”

Ferraro was critical of both the Tuite agreement as well as the $220,000 consulting contract issued last month to Planning Director Kenneth Topping, who was forced out by Bradley’s office.

“I’m sure upset about it,” Ferraro said. “It made me sick to realize they’re going to pay (Tuite) this kind of money.”

Molina, who chairs the City Council committee that oversees the CRA, said she believes the committee should have been notified in advance of the proposed settlement.

“There are some aspects of this package that are very unreasonable and don’t make any sense at all,” she said. “This is exactly why the public loses confidence in their officials.”

Jim Wood, CRA board chairman, defended the Tuite pact in an interview Tuesday. He said the board had been faced with considerable hostility from the City Council since 1987 and specifically from Yaroslavsky, who he said has tried to politicize the CRA as part of a campaign to attack Bradley and run for higher office.

“This atmosphere of high-level name-calling and failure to respect the redevelopment process has led to the agency’s actions in looking for an opportunity to seek a new administrator,” Wood said. “In order to seek a new administrator, we had to settle with the present administrator.”

Times staff writer Henry Weinstein contributed to this story.