Mayor Offers to Expand CRA Power of Council : City Hall: Bradley hopes to allay anger over the $1.7-million Tuite buyout. An effort begins to oust a commissioner who voted for the deal.

In a move calculated to preserve his authority over the beleaguered Community Redevelopment Agency, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley proposed Monday to expand the City Council’s role in overseeing the appointment and compensation of the powerful agency’s top executive.

A council committee, meanwhile, used the limited oversight powers it currently has to vote unanimously Monday against reappointing CRA Commissioner Dollie Chapman, a Bradley appointee who was one of six commissioners to approve the $1.7-million “golden parachute” for outgoing administrator John Tuite.

Tuite’s retirement package, which Bradley said was negotiated without consulting him, is the latest in a series of CRA actions and policies that have provoked public outcry and council condemnation.

Responsible for economic development in downtown Los Angeles and nearly a score of depressed neighborhoods across the city, the CRA--with a $250-million annual budget--has been pummeled by critics who say it favors the interests of large developers over poor people, homeowners and small-business owners.

The deal with Tuite, who took the $147,000-a-year CRA job in 1986, involved buying out the remaining 18 months of his contract, paying him a $50,000 bonus and substantially enlarging his pension. Critics of the buyout contend that it was negotiated behind the council’s back and that it is being paid to someone who was not doing a good job in the view of City Hall, a number of neighborhood organizations and downtown real estate developers.

The vote on Chapman’s reappointment to the CRA commission was the first chance the council has had to take punitive action in response to the Tuite settlement, which was approved by the commission Dec. 28.

“What you don’t seem to understand,” Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said to Chapman, “is that somebody has to be held accountable for one of the most outrageous decisions ever made by a public agency in the history of this country.”

Chapman, an interior designer who has been on the commission since 1984, said she thought that Tuite’s retirement package was appropriate.

“I believed we were being fair with Mr. Tuite,” she said.

Asked if she would go along with a council request--if one were made--to rescind Tuite’s retirement package, Chapman said she would not and expressed doubt that it could be rescinded.

The council committee--made up of Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina and Richard Alatorre--voted to reappoint CRA commissioner Larry E. Kirk, the general manager of the Los Angeles Hilton. Kirk, appointed to the commission last year, was not present for the vote on Tuite’s retirement package.

The council has made periodic threats to take over the CRA, but its bark has been worse than its bite.

Yaroslavsky said Monday he doubts that a majority of the council would vote to seize control of the agency. Moreover, at least three council members, including Council President John Ferraro, support Bradley’s power-sharing proposal, according to a spokesman for the mayor.

That proposal, which the council committee did not have time to discuss Monday, would give the council the right to confirm the appointment of the CRA administrator, the right to approve the administrator’s compensation contract and the right to approve all CRA commission decisions.