Selection of New Chief Expected to Proceed Slowly : Succession: Officials and voters will have to decide on City Charter changes before Gates’ replacement can be chosen. The debate could take months.

Although two city councilmen said Friday that Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates haspromised to retire by the end of this year, it will probably take longer than that to select his successor.

It’s a question of mechanics.

Gates’ replacement probably cannot be chosen until at least next February, said John J. Driscoll, the city’s personnel chief.

First, Los Angeles has to resolve whether old City Charter provisions--or new ones proposed this week by the Christopher Commission--will govern the next police chief’s tenure.

The Christopher Commission urged that the new chief serve only a five-year term, renewable once, rather than receive the Civil Service protections that since 1925 have given Gates and his predecessors virtual lifetime job security.

There are expected to be plenty of candidates for the chief’s position regardless of the degree of job security. That is not the hitch.

But the current and proposed City Charter provisions give different instructions about who is to do the final winnowing of candidates for the job.

The current City Charter says that the Civil Service Commission is to make the final cut and the Police Commission is to make the appointment.

The City Charter provision proposed by the Christopher Commission, however, lets the Police Commission make the final cut and the mayor make the appointment.

The only people who can resolve which City Charter provision will apply are the voters.

And it appears that the earliest they could decide the question would be during a special election in December.

An election could not be held before then, city officials said Friday, because of legal requirements spelled out in the City Charter that govern what must happen before an amendment to the Charter can be submitted to voters.

First, a City Council committee and a majority of the full council must decide what the amendment should say and instruct the city attorney to write it.

By law, this instruction to the city attorney has to come 110 days before an election. For an early December election, that means it would have to be approved by mid- to late August.

If everything ran like clockwork, the city attorney’s office would have only 15 more days to draft the language of the amendment before sending it back to the council, which has to approve the specific language of an amendment at least 95 days before it is submitted to voters.

Separately, the council would also have to authorize a special election, which carries an estimated cost of $1.5 million to $1.8 million.

The variation in the estimate reflects uncertainties such as printing and mailing costs of ballot pamphlets. The precise cost will be determined when the council decides how many of the Christopher Commission’s proposed 15 City Charter changes it wants to adopt and the city attorney’s office decides how many words it will take to spell them out.

“It really depends on how complex the issue gets,” said J. Michael Carey, executive officer to the city clerk.

Major battles over how much of the Christopher Commission’s package to place before the voters could develop in council committees or during the full council’s deliberations, which could delay the process.

Some council members have expressed a desire to address only changes relating to the chief.

But the Christopher Commission recommended a series of changes that would not only reduce the authority of the chief but increase the amount of civilian oversight over the Police Department provided by the Police Commission. The blue-ribbon panel said in its report that it was important that these changes be adopted together.

In addition, the Christopher Commission urged the adoption of other City Charter changes that would make it easier for police administrators to discipline errant officers.

Some of these proposed changes have already triggered outrage from the police union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which is certain to demand that the changes be made the subject of good-faith bargaining before they are submitted to the voters. City officials said they are not sure if this “meet and confer” process, required by state law, can be resolved in time to place these issues on the December ballot.

It would be $200,000 to $500,000 cheaper to wait for a vote until June 2, when the city could piggyback its vote on an already scheduled statewide election, California’s presidential primary.

City officials also said they expect the June election to draw four to five times as many voters as a special election in December.

But a June election would, of course, set selection of a new chief back by another six months.

Driscoll, the city’s personnel chief, said he has already started the selection process but cannot complete it until the City Charter questions are resolved.

He said it will take him a month or so to develop a brochure inviting candidates to apply.

The brochure will spell out qualifications for the job, developed after Driscoll and his staff consult with community and business leaders and perhaps hold public hearings to get a description of what qualities people want in their police chief.

As when Gates was selected 13 years ago, Police Department officers holding the ranks of commander, assistant chief and deputy chief will probably be allowed to apply. Police chiefs and, in some cases, assistant and deputy chiefs from other cities will also be able to apply.

Driscoll said he doesn’t anticipate a big advertising budget because of all the media attention the question of Gates’ departure has received. “We may not have to spend a penny on advertising,” he said.

He said he anticipates that about 40 candidates will apply for the job and that they will not be deterred by the prospects of a five-year term because that is much more job security than police chiefs have in almost all of the nation’s other major cities, where they typically work at the pleasure of the city manager or mayor.

Candidates will be required to write essays on why they should get the job and, largely on the basis of their essays and preliminary reference checks, about two-thirds would be eliminated.

The remaining 12 to 15 candidates would be interviewed and ranked. More thorough reference checks would begin.

Meanwhile, if Gates decided to leave office before the voters make their decision, an interim chief could be appointed under the existing City Charter for up to 120 days--a term that would be renewable once.