Federal Inquiry Into Torrance Minority Hiring Practices Looms : Affirmative action: Officials concede that few minorities and women hold city fire and police jobs, but say the city has done all it can to recruit more.

Concerned about a dearth of minority and women employees in Torrance’s Fire and Police departments, an attorney from the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to look into the city’s hiring practices, city officials say.

Attorney Philip Eure will visit Torrance--perhaps as early as this week--to interview city department heads, Civil Service officials and personnel managers, City Atty. Kenneth L. Nelson said Friday.

The Justice Department began its inquiry after reviewing employment records that Torrance and other cities must file with the federal government each year, Nelson said.

According to city records on full-time employment for 1990, the Police Department employs 41 minority and 62 women employees out of a staff of 306; the Fire Department employs eight minority and eight women out of 175.

City officials acknowledged that such figures are worrisome. But they said the numbers reflect the difficulty of attracting a diverse work force--not a poor recruiting effort on the part of Torrance.

“If we can’t get the results that meet some idealized (employment) criteria, it ain’t for lack of trying,” Nelson said.

Said Mayor Katy Geissert: “The numbers certainly do not look good, but to the best of my knowledge, we’ve had aggressive recruitment, and that’s the key.”

It was unclear whether Eure’s visit means that a formal Justice Department investigation of Torrance is under way. Reached in his Washington office Friday, Eure declined to discuss the inquiry or to say whether other cities are also being investigated.

Nelson described the visit as part of a “preliminary investigation.”

“They have decided they want backup materials and interviews, and then they’ll decide later if they’re going to take it any further,” Nelson said. “They will be looking at recruiting practices and testing practices.”

Another Justice Department attorney visited the city about three weeks ago in connection with the same inquiry. But that attorney later resigned from the department and the task was transferred to Eure, Nelson said.

In defending the city’s employment record, city officials pointed to examples of women and minority members in top city administrative jobs. Among those mentioned were Assistant City Manager Albert Ng, who is Asian; cable administrator Michael Smith, who is black; street maintenance superintendent Richard Garcia, who is Latino, and Finance Director Mary Giordano.

Asked about the Fire Department figures, officials said city hiring in that and other departments is limited by a Civil Service rule that says only the candidates with the top three test scores for a job can be interviewed.

“You have to pick among the three, and if you don’t pick the top one, you have to explain why,” Nelson said.

The Los Angeles Fire Department used to have the same so-called “rule of three,” but adopted a more flexible hiring policy several years ago, said Capt. Robert Roy of that department’s planning division.

The change, he said, has produced results. Though total employment figures for the department were not immediately available, its 2,813-member firefighting force includes 1,048 minorities, or 37%, and 38 women, or 1%. By contrast, the 95 firefighters among the Torrance Fire Department’s 175 employees include just four minorities, or 4%, and no women, city personnel records show.

“Our hiring policy gives management more latitude in meeting their affirmative action goals,” Roy said.

Geissert indicated that the city is open to considering new employment policies. “If there are methods to attract more minorities and women, then we should pursue these,” she said.

But Geissert and other city officials were reluctant to concede that the city has not been devoting sufficient effort toward recruiting minorities and women.

“What the Justice Department will find is that we have female department heads, Hispanic department heads, blacks in leadership positions, and in the new fire station we’ve constructed facilities for both sexes,” said Councilman Dan Walker. “My God, what else can you do?”