Oops, Oops and Oops : Hey, we didn’t mean to sign it, not know it, say it

Nobody’s perfect, but some days you have to wonder if anybody is really in charge. Take the other day when . . .

1. Mayor Tom Bradley wants to call back an ordinance that he had just signed, because he hadn’t meant to sign it. The measure was supposed to expand the authority of the City Council over a number of boards and commissions whose members he appoints. It would have put just such a proposition on the June ballot. Naturally, the City Council was elated by the goof. The mayor is deeply chagrined. Said a top Bradley aide, sheepishly: “It’s an actual screw-up. I don’t know how it got past me.” Oops.

2. The City Council now admits that there are a few things about the new Los Angeles city treasurer that it wished it had known about before it voted--unanimously--to approve this Bradley nominee. This $99,000-a-year job is a sensitive one; the office’s staff of 50 helps manage, among other things, a city investment portfolio exceeding $2 billion--lots of opportunity for monkey business here.

But it now turns out, after the job has been signed, sealed and delivered, the City Council apparently did not know that in 1988 the nominee had been placed on probation in his job as the city treasurer of Grand Rapids, Mich. Oops .

It may be that the nominee--J. Paul Brownridge--will prove to be an excellent treasurer. But it is hardly reassuring that his background was so cursorily reviewed.

3. Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, thinking about how to cope with the drought, now believes that banning the construction of hot tubs and pools is a terrible idea.

That may be, but what’s interesting is that it was Bernson who initially brought it up. Bernson says he made the proposal without knowing all the facts and now wishes to have the matter studied further. “It certainly wasn’t the intention of the council to put the pool industry out of business.” Oops.

Maybe it was just one of those weeks.