New Bernson Panel Decried Over Plan to Meet Privately : Government: The task force will discuss restructuring the Planning Department. The L.A. councilman defends the closed-door meetings.

Neighborhood and environmental activists have complained about plans by a newly formed City Hall task force to bar the public from “informal” meetings to discuss reforming the city’s much-criticized Planning Department.

Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson created the task force two weeks ago following a bluntly worded management audit that said political meddling by Mayor Tom Bradley and council members has prevented city planners from providing leadership on development issues. Bernson named himself, Bradley and eight other top city officials to the task force.

Bernson, who is chairman of the City Council’s powerful Planning Committee, said the task force will meet about once a week for the next 90 days, and builders, homeowners, architects and others will be invited to address it. A Bernson aide said the meetings probably will be held in the councilman’s City Hall office.

The task force will draft recommendations for restructuring the Planning Department that will be forwarded to the council for approval.

Bernson said council hearings on the recommendations will be public. However, all but one of the task force meetings probably will be held behind closed doors, he said.

“We’re not going to try and keep any secrets from anybody,” Bernson said. “We just don’t want it to get bogged down with a lot of” comment from anti-development advocates.

“Basically, the legitimate people who are involved in this will be involved in this. It just doesn’t serve any purpose to have it be open meetings,” he said.

But homeowner and environmental organizations argued that the task force meetings should be open, saying closed-door sessions will undermine public confidence in any recommendations that emerge.

They also challenged a statement by Bernson that the major problem in the Planning Department is not political interference but the lengthy period needed to process development applications.

Laura Lake, a board member of the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters, said that although most city planners are dedicated, hard-working professionals, “political incursions” by elected officials into the planning process have badly damaged their morale.

She said she is concerned that task force members may use the meetings to figure out ways to further weaken the department.

“The City Council doesn’t want a Planning Department. Each council member wants to be the planning czar for their individual district,” said Lake, adding that council members often intervene in planning matters on behalf of builders who contribute money to their campaigns.

In addition to Bernson and the mayor, the task force members include Planning Commission President William Luddy; Councilman Michael Woo; City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie; City Atty. James K. Hahn; City Chief Legislative Analyst William R. McCarley; and former councilman-turned-lobbyist Robert Wilkinson, who is chairman of the city’s One-Stop Permit Committee.

But critics noted that the group includes no public representatives. They added that its members--all of them city officials or bureaucrats--are unlikely to make the sweeping changes necessary to improve the department. “These are the people who are already responsible for the mess to begin with,” said Norton Halper, director of the Hollywood Homeowners and Tenants Assn.

Bernson said he hopes to change the Planning Department so that development applications are acted upon faster. Many builders wait up to three years for a decision by city officials, adding to the costs of the projects and thus forcing them to raise home prices, he said.

But Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., said he is worried that city officials are moving toward allowing more building in the city, while trying to stymie citizen opposition.

Bernson denied that, saying he merely wants the process streamlined.

“This is in no way going to increase growth or encourage additional density,” he said. “People with bad projects . . . are going to be denied, only they are going to be denied faster.”

Community activists also charged that closing the task force meetings was an attempt to “end-run” the state’s Brown Act, which requires most government business to be transacted in public.

Bernson said the group was set up informally by him, without official council action, and is therefore not subject to the Brown Act. A spokesman for the city attorney’s office agreed with Bernson’s interpretation.

However, disagreement came from Terry Francke, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, a watchdog group made up of news media representatives. The task force, since it will hear some public comment and make recommendations that will shape city planning policy, is close enough to an official government body that its proceedings should be open, Francke said.