Ferraro, Yaroslavsky Urge Council to Take Over CRA : Politics: They say there are enough votes to override a veto. Director’s severance package sparked the action.

In a move that promises to spark a battle over who governs development in Los Angeles, City Council members John Ferraro and Zev Yaroslavsky on Thursday urged the council to seize control of the Community Redevelopment Agency from Mayor Tom Bradley and his appointed commissioners.

The councilmen said their decision was prompted by the redevelopment commission’s widely criticized vote last week to pay outgoing Director John Tuite an unprecedented $765,000 in severance benefits from taxpayer funds.

His buyout, they said, was the most recent example of how few checks and balances exist to ensure that the agency remains accountable and operates in the public interest.

“I cannot recall an incident that was so contemptuous of the public,” Yaroslavsky said during a news conference. “How many police officers could we have hired for $765,000? How many trees could we trim, how many child-care centers could be built?”

Yaroslavsky said Tuite’s generous severance package appears to go far beyond normal legal obligations for compensating city department heads. Tuite was hired less than five years ago, earning $147,000 last year.

Ferraro, who as City Council president keeps tabs on the mood of his colleagues, predicted that the takeover plan is almost certain to get the eight votes needed for passage when the issue is debated next week.

Asked whether he can muster the two additional votes required for an override of Bradley’s expected veto, Ferraro said without hesitation, “Yes, I also think we can override.”

The seven-member CRA commission has defended the settlement by saying that it was mandated by Tuite’s employment contract, which had two years remaining. The board has not made the contract public, nor has it explained why it was crucial to remove Tuite, although it was widely known that the mayor’s office was dissatisfied with his development policies.

The nearly autonomous redevelopment agency controls a budget of about $80 million a year, funded largely by local property taxes. It is entrusted with overseeing development of everything from skyscrapers to housing for the poor. The CRA’s operations are overseen by the commission, all of whose members are appointed by the mayor.

Commission President Jim Wood refused to comment Thursday on the possible City Council takeover.

In the past five years, council members loyal to Bradley have twice rejected bids by Yaroslavsky to transfer control of the CRA to the council. If the current attempt is successful, the agency would be forced to operate like other city departments, obtaining council approval for personnel and development contracts.

Yaroslavsky and Ferraro were joined Thursday by Councilwoman Gloria Molina, who chairs a council committee that monitors the CRA. Molina, currently a candidate for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said she will give the agency “a final chance to explain and rescind” its decision at a hearing next week.

Shaking her head, Molina said the redevelopment commissioners had agreed to bring Tuite’s severance package before her committee for review, but the commission instead voted in secret.

“They are clearly testing whether, in fact, this council has any backbone whatsoever,” Molina said. “We are going to tell them not to play their silly power games with us.”

Molina has voted against past efforts to wrest the CRA away from Bradley.

“She has now been moved by this incident to rethink her position, and that is very significant,” Yaroslavsky said.

Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores said she also is “leaning more in (Yaroslavsky’s) direction than I ever have. I think the payout is obscene.”

Councilman Hal Bernson, while refusing to discuss his position on the proposed takeover, called Tuite’s severance package “an outright gift of public funds.” He added that “there is no reason for Tuite to leave. He was doing a good job.”

The mayor’s spokesman, Bill Chandler, declined to comment on the impending battle for control of the CRA. However, he said, Bradley does not want the redevelopment commission to approve further personnel contracts that provide for unusually lucrative severance buyouts.

Chandler said the CRA commission has “justified its position (on the severance pay) by saying the CRA is obligated by contract to pay this sum.”

Chandler said Tuite’s replacement should understand that “his or her contract will be pristine and carefully scrutinized” by Bradley, implying that Tuite’s contract may have been ushered through without mayoral scrutiny.

Questions continued to be asked in City Hall about why the CRA commission wanted to rid itself of Tuite at such at such a high financial and political cost.

Yaroslavsky described Tuite as a “B-minus” administrator, noting: “That’s pretty good for City Hall, so I am very suspicious about this sudden overwhelming need to get rid of him. This was not a corrupt individual or an incompetent one.”

Speculation in City Hall is centering on two theories for Tuite’s ouster.

One is that Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani believed Tuite was increasingly responsive to City Council demands and could no longer ensure consistent loyalty to Bradley within the CRA. Earlier this week, Yaroslavsky alleged in an interview with The Times that the mayor’s staff saw Tuite as unsupportive of a system that awards developers contracts based on political patronage.

Others speculated that commission President Wood, unhappy with mounting criticism of the agency for moving slowly on affordable housing and social programs, wanted Tuite to leave. But this theory seems less likely because two knowledgeable City Hall officials, who asked to remain unnamed, insisted that Wood “kicked and screamed” to keep Tuite.

Whatever the reasons for his departure, the large severence package is unusual even in big-city politics.

City officials in New York, for example, said their city never pays redevelopment officials huge severance packages to get them to leave.

“We have had nothing even remotely like that in the past decade and I don’t believe anything before that,” said Lee Silberstein, public affairs officer for New York’s Public Development Corporation, a city agency with a $100-million budget, whose director makes $115,000.

“Unless your guy really messed up on something and just had to go, I can’t think of a justification involving public funds,” Silberstein said.