Voters Made Gates Issue Moot, City Attorney’s Office Says

The Police Commission’s appeal of a Los Angeles court ruling reinstating Police Chief Daryl F. Gates should be thrown out because the city’s voters recently passed a charter amendment giving the City Council new powers over the commission, the city attorney’s office said Wednesday.

The commission appealed along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference after a Superior Court judge ruled May 13 that the City Council could reinstate Gates as part of a settlement of a lawsuit the chief had filed against the city.

But the passage of Charter Amendment 5 in the June 4 election “takes the wind out the sails of the Commission and the SCLC” and renders their appeal “essentially moot from a government perspective,” Senior Assistant City Atty. Frederick Merkin said in a memorandum filed Friday with the state Court of Appeal.

Peter Haviland, an attorney representing the SCLC, said, “We should prevail on the appeal. What the City Council did was illegal and Charter Amendment 5 does not change that.”

The charter amendment allows the City Council to review and overturn all actions by city commissions, including the Police Commission.

On April 4, the commission placed Gates on administrative leave, pending completion of an investigation into the Rodney G. King case.

The next day, after Gates threatened to sue, the City Council voted to reinstate him as a settlement for the suit, which had not yet been filed.

Judge Ronald Sohigian reinstated Gates, saying the City Charter gave the City Council control over litigation. In appealing the decision, the commission and the SCLC argued that the City Council acted improperly and misinterpreted the 66-year-old City Charter.

Merkin said that with the passage of Charter Amendment 5, the appeals have been overtaken by historical events.

“In a nutshell,” Merkin said, “it doesn’t make a lot of sense for the commission to claim ability to control litigation at a time when the commission’s decisions can be substantially controlled by the City Council.”