Member of Civil Service Board Removed by Mayor

In a move criticized as another political maneuver to pressure Police Chief Daryl F. Gates into resigning, Mayor Tom Bradley on Tuesday replaced one of five Civil Service commissioners who could eventually decide whether Gates should be fired.

The announcement startled City Council members and the president of the Civil Service board, who expressed concerns about any political meddling with the obscure city commission at a time when the Rodney G. King beating has focused a spotlight on Gates’ tenure.

“I was surprised,” said board President Casmiro Tolentino. “That is pretty much all I can say. I wasn’t aware of any problems. Any time there is that hint of politicization, I’d be concerned.”

Bradley replaced attorney Claire Bronowski with Tarzana labor lawyer Larry Drasin, a longtime supporter of the mayor who said he learned of the appointment Monday. Drasin said he did not speak with the mayor about the appointment, nor was he aware that Bronowski had been forced to transfer to the city’s Municipal Auditorium/Convention Center Commission after only six months on the Civil Service board.

“This came out like a bolt out of the blue,” Drasin said.

While a spokesman for the mayor described the moves as “routine,” several City Council members characterized the announcement as the latest in a series of bold political moves engineered by Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani to turn up the heat on Gates. City Hall sources have told The Times that, while Bradley has stopped just shy of calling for the chief’s ouster, Fabiani has conducted a behind-the-scenes campaign designed to exert so much pressure on Gates that he will give up his $168,000-a-year post.

Now, several council members say, it appears that Bradley is attempting to assure that a majority of the Civil Service board would strongly support Gates’ ouster.

“There isn’t any doubt in my mind that Mark Fabiani is orchestrating this,” said Councilwoman Joy Picus, who nominated Bronowski for the commission and discussed the removal with Bradley on Tuesday. “The politicization of the Civil Service Commission is the worst possible thing that could happen; the commission is at the heart of integrity of employment of city personnel. It is really dangerous.”

Said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky: “I’m flabbergasted. I’m at a loss to explain what the mayor is trying to do other than to stack a jury.”

Councilman Michael Woo said, “The mayor’s ability to appoint commissioners is one of his few means of exercising real political power. . . . The question is why now and why this commission?”

For council members to suggest that political motives are at work is “sheer speculation” and “an insult to both the outgoing and incoming commissioners,” said Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler. “The mayor will often switch commissioners from one commission to another assignment. It’s a routine practice.”

Drasin said he is close to labor leader and Bradley confidant Bill Robertson, who last week called on Gates “set aside his monumental ego” and resign.

As the newest Civil Service commissioner, Drasin joins Julie Depoian, the wife of top Bradley aide Philip Depoian, and the Rev. Kenneth Flowers, a Baptist minister in South-Central Los Angeles whose congregation is demanding that Gates step down. The other two commissioners are Vice President Anthony de Los Reyes and Tolentino, both lawyers who have served on the board for nearly a decade.

Despite the change on the Civil Service commission, lawyers and city officials say it will be difficult for the city to fire Gates because the mayor and City Council have given him “superior” employee evaluations since 1987.

“What legal basis do we have to move to get rid of the chief? The answer is not a lot,” said Councilman Richard Alatorre, chairman of the Public Safety Committee.

Officials said that any move to oust Gates will be made tougher by the Police Commission’s failure to serve written reprimand on Gates each time he has made insensitive remarks over the past several years, including statements that “casual drug users should be taken out and shot” and that a policewoman’s killer was “an El Salvadoran drunk--a drunk who doesn’t belong here.”

“You can say he has an atrocious attitude toward ethnic minorities and he has made statements that anyone in their right mind would say do not warrant him to be police chief,” Commissioner Flowers said. “But as Civil Service commissioners, we cannot hold those (statements) against him unless he received some sort of reprimand or discipline. It makes it virtually impossible now to bring those statements up.”

But Glenn Rothner, former chairman of the Labor Law Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn., said the barriers to removal of Gates are not insurmountable.

“I think that in a Civil Service proceeding, managers are held to a higher standard than rank-and-file employees,” Rothner said. “We’re talking about a person who gives direction to the entire department. That is something that any hearing officer sitting in a Civil Service hearing is going to have to take into account and be influenced by. It is not impossible to fire executive employees in these circumstances.”

Indeed, Police Commissioner Melanie Lomax indicated that the Police Commission intends to reassess Gates’ performance soon. Lomax said that she, attorney Dan Garcia and civil libertarian Stanley Sheinbaum, whose recent appointment has not yet been confirmed by the City Council, all are new commissioners who have not rated Gates. Lawyer Sam Williams is the only commissioner who has been on the police board more than six months; the fifth seat has not yet been filled by Bradley.

Lomax also said that commissioners could begin to build a case against Gates by relying on two previous reprimands against the chief.

“The majority of members of the Police Commission will be entirely new and have every right to evaluate the chief of police in his performance in the context of our responsibilities,” Lomax said. “We are not bound by whatever previous police commissioners have decided or not decided with respect to Daryl Gates.”

Any recommendation for disciplinary action or firing by the Police Commission would be automatically referred to the Civil Service Commission, which would sit as a board of rights in hearing the case and determining the level of discipline, if any. For this reason, the makeup of the commission could be critical to Gates’ future.

The mayor appointed Bronowski, 35, an attorney with the Christensen, White, Miller, Fink & Jacobs law firm, to the commission last fall.

“Claire is an outstanding Civil Service commissioner,” said Councilwoman Picus, who had employed Bronowski as a council aide for two years. “She is incredibly competent and one of the brightest people I have ever known.”

Picus said she was stunned when Bradley told her in a telephone conversation Tuesday that he had transferred Bronowski because he was “disappointed” in her performance on the Civil Service commission.

“That tests my credulity,” Picus said she told the mayor.

In an interview, Bronowski confirmed that she was asked by the mayor’s office to step down and take a seat on the Municipal Auditorium Commission. She said she talked to “a number of people” in the mayor’s office, including Deputy Mayor Fabiani. They offered no reason for making the change, she said, adding that she did not ask.

The subject of Daryl Gates was never mentioned, Bronowski said. She said she would not speculate whether the move was part of an attempt to oust Gates.

“I enjoyed that commission and I learned a lot on it,” Bronowski said. “I was appointed by the mayor and basically I am serving the city at his request.”

She is looking forward to a “new challenge” on the Municipal Auditorium/Convention Center Commission, she said.

Fabiani said Tuesday that the move was routine and was part of a number of commission changes the mayor is making. He declined to discuss the reason for Bronowski’s shift and would not describe the other commission changes in the works.

Asked why Bronowski was deemed fit to serve on one commission but not another, Bradley spokesman Chandler said, “The Civil Service Commission has one of the heaviest workloads of any commission. . . . The demands of the Convention Center Commission, although managing a $250-million improvement, do not require as much time.”

Bronowski’s replacement, Drasin, said that he was first contacted by Fabiani on Monday. He said that Fabiani never mentioned the Gates controversy.

“I’ve been a supporter of the mayor for many years,” said Drasin, 57. “I’ve indicated to the mayor that on some occasion if he had an opening and needed somebody, I’d be willing to serve. It sounded like a very interesting commission. I wouldn’t have been too thrilled with the Zoo Commission.”

Times staff writer Jane Fritsch contributed to this story.