What L.A.’s Founders Had in Mind

When Superior Court Judge Ronald M. Sohigian ruled that the Police Commission must bow to the Los Angeles City Council, he was ignoring L.A.’s political history.

His opinion Monday, part of the Rodney King controversy, misread the philosophy of the framers of the City Charter. He said they intended commissioners to have merely supporting player status. The City Council, and to a lesser extent, the mayor, would be in charge.

Judge, that’s not what the city’s founders had in mind.

They conceived of all-powerful commissions, although not always with the goal of providing good government. In fact, some of the so-called Founding Fathers could have been called the Founding Fixers.

That was certainly true in 1902 when they shaped the prototype city commission, the Board of Water Commissioners, now the Board of Water and Power Commissioners. It’s an agency familiar to anyone who’s seen the film about early-day L.A. land grabbers, “Chinatown.”

What the big shots needed was a commission that would do their bidding, without interference from the council and the mayor. Some of them owned much of the San Fernando Valley. They wanted water--plenty of it--to turn their low-profit grazing land into high-profit subdivisions.

The commission, which ran the city water system, was carefully designed to be financially and almost legally independent of the City Council and mayor. True, the mayor appointed the commissioners and the council confirmed them. But the city’s business powers controlled the elected officials.

One of the water commissioners was M.H. Sherman, part of the city’s ruling clique and a big San Fernando Valley landowner. Standing to profit if water was imported, Sherman helped persuade his fellow commissioners to buy water rights in the distant Owens Valley. Only after the land purchases were completed did the commissioners tell the City Council of the Owens Valley plan.

More commissions were created to handle important jobs, such as running the harbor. Although they never approached the audacity--and venality--of the early water commissioners, they did enjoy independence from the mayor and council.

The early 20th Century commission system wasn’t all Chinatown. The Water and Power Commission, putting its shady origins behind, gained a reputation for efficiency. Believe it or not, the commission became the model for reformers.

The reformers, known as California Progressives, tended to be well-off, old-American-stock Republicans who were appalled at the way Midwestern and Eastern cities, as well as San Francisco, had fallen into the hands of immigrants and political bosses.

The Progressives were determined to make sure the mayor and the City Council would have limited power if the “wrong” people were elected to those offices. In 1925, they pushed through a City Charter weakening the mayor and council and empowering even more commissions. Commissions took over many municipal functions, parks, planning, the Fire Department, public works. And, of course, the police. And ever since, the commissions essentially have run city government.

Theoretically, commission decisions can be appealed to the council, but it’s procedurally difficult and doesn’t often happen. Most of the commissioners are well-off. The poor don’t have time to spend on such part-time activities. Most are political insiders, big contributors to the mayor’s campaigns and those of council members.

The system is just what the Progressive reformers wanted, government by the elite.

But it hasn’t completely achieved the Progressive dream of honest government. Periodically, commissioners are nailed for conflict of interest; several years ago, the body of a harbor commissioner was discovered floating face down in the harbor just before he was to turn state’s evidence in a scandal trial.

Such scandals have brought forth calls for abolition of the commission system. City Hall politicking over the King case has renewed the calls.

Now Judge Sohigian--focusing on the charter’s wording but perhaps forgetting its rich history--may have given the advocates of change what they wanted, if his opinion’s logic is extended through city government.

If the ruling survives an appeal, the council, rather than the Harbor Commission, may decide on harbor expansion plans that change the face of San Pedro. Controversial developments such as the San Fernando Valley’s Porter Ranch may get a full council airing rather than a perfunctory hearing.

A positive result would be more debate and increased public participation in city decision-making.

A more skeptical scenario would have big campaign contributors gaining even more influence on the City Council and the mayor. That’s not what the reformers wanted.