Screening for Top Planning Job Questioned : Government: Homeowner activists raise concern over removal from selection panel of lawyer who was viewed as an ally. Interviews of finalists begin today.

Homeowner activists are questioning if their views will be adequately represented when a panel begins interviewing 12 finalists today for the city’s next planning chief, one of Los Angeles City Hall’s most visible bureaucratic posts.

Their concerns were prompted by the disclosure Wednesday that Marina del Rey lawyer Debra Bowen, viewed by homeowners as sympathetic to their cause, had been removed from the five-member panel last month because her identity had been leaked to the press. Names of the panel members are kept secret to keep the process from becoming politicized.

Jack Driscoll, head of the city Personnel Department, refused Thursday to reveal the full composition of the panel but said someone “associated with homeowner groups” sits on the committee. These assurances, however, did not lessen the concerns of several homeowner groups.

The panel will interview and rate the 12 applicants and forward the names of at least six of the highest-scoring candidates to Mayor Tom Bradley, who must by law pick a new planning director from this group.

Bowen’s removal “sounds like a net loss for us and for the representation of our concerns,” said Bill Christopher, veteran homeowner activist and former Los Angeles planning commissioner.

Gordon Murley, president of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., said Bowen’s removal was of “grave concern” because it appeared to leave only one identifiable homeowner representative on the panel.

Driscoll said he was surprised to learn that Bowen was considered a homeowner ally because she had been recommended as a possible panel member by the mayor’s office.

The 36-year-old Bowen, who has been involved in land-use issues in Venice and Santa Monica, was ousted in mid-October after the Personnel Department--which oversees the civil service process--learned that a newspaper reporter had interviewed her about her membership, Driscoll said.

Bowen told The Times she believed that her dismissal was unfair and speculated that there might be “political reasons for my ouster.”

It is city practice to keep the membership of these selection panels secret to protect the “integrity of the civil service process,” Driscoll said. If their names become public, the panelists might be lobbied by job applicants or their sponsors, Driscoll said.

Bowen said she did not know how the reporter got her name and that she had given the journalist only a brief description of her involvement in land-use issues. “It didn’t seem to be a big deal,” Bowen said.

Driscoll said his staff learned of Bowen’s interview with the reporter from the reporter as he tried to gather information for his story about the department.

Although Driscoll argued strenuously for keeping the panelists’ names secret, Bowen and homeowner activists contend that the city’s policy is misguided. “I don’t think the composition of the panelists needs to be so totally secret,” Christopher said.

Since Jan. 1, Melanie Fallon has been acting chief of the Planning Department.