Homeowner Groups Fear Effect of Panelist’s Ouster : City Hall: Activists say that the removal of an attorney sympathetic to their concerns leaves them at a disadvantage in the selection of a new planning director.

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

Their concerns were prompted by the disclosure that Marina del Rey lawyer Debra L. 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.

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 relieve the concerns of several homeowner groups.

The panel will interview and rate the 12 applicants and forward the names of at least the six 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 one of the city’s best-known and oldest federations of homeowner groups, 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 a homeowner favorite 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 city’s Personnel Department--which oversees the civil service process--learned that a newspaper reporter had interviewed her about her membership on the panel, Driscoll said.

Bowen told The Times she believed 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 candidates 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. “It wasn’t as if I were talking to candidates for the job. I was surprised to learn that it was a matter of concern.”

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

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

The real concern should be that the panelists are fair and that they don’t confer with the candidates outside the formal selection process, Christopher and Murley said. “It makes me nervous that we don’t know who’s on the panel,” Christopher said.

Homeowner activists have been seeking representation in the planning chief selection process ever since Ken Topping announced in late 1990 that he was leaving the post. Since Jan. 1, 1991, Melanie Fallon has been acting chief of the department.

Councilman Joel Wachs had made a motion urging the Personnel Department to allow formal homeowner participation in the selection of Topping’s successor.

However, the motion was not brought before the council’s Labor and Human Relations Committee, of which Councilwoman Joy Picus is the chairwoman, until Wednesday--two days before the job interviews start. The committee shelved Wachs’ motion without debate after it received a report from the department that implied homeowner concerns were being met.

Picus said she was not aware that Bowen had been dismissed when her committee shelved Wachs’ motion. “I accepted what I was told at face value,” she said of the Personnel Department report. Picus said she had no plans to pursue the issue.

Murley, of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., said the failure of Wachs and Picus to carefully review the Personnel Department’s report or raise questions about Bowen’s dismissal exemplifies lawmakers’ nonchalance toward homeowner concerns.