Gates Sharply Scolded by Commission : Law enforcement: The police chief is ordered to submit a report on his plan to take control of the community-based system and other operations.

The Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday sharply scolded Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and ordered him to submit a detailed report on his plan to take direct control over community-based policing and other operations at five stations throughout the city.

Accusing Gates of trying to circumvent the policy-making board, the commission told the chief his report should include how the five patrol areas were chosen, a step-by-step explanation of how the program will work and how the Police Department will include the public as an “equal partner.”

“The main problem here, Chief, is that this commission does not know what you have in mind,” said Commission President Stanley K. Sheinbaum.

The controversy began last Thursday after Gates stunned his top commanders by announcing in a private staff meeting that he intended to take direct control of the community-policing project in five geographic divisions, bypassing the department’s command structure.

The announcement drew immediate criticism from proponents of community policing, including Sheinbaum, who suggested that Gates may be violating the City Charter by trying to take direct control of area police stations.

On Tuesday, Sheinbaum and Commissioner Jesse A. Brewer--a former assistant chief--said they would not hesitate to delay implementation of the chief’s plan on Jan. 26 if it does not meet with their approval and the spirit of reforms urged by the Christopher Commission.

During the meeting, a testy exchange ensued between Gates and Sheinbaum, who kept interrupting each other, their voices strained and raised.

“The (City) Council asked that you work through the commission. This is a policy matter,” Sheinbaum admonished Gates.

“I was going to bring you a progress report, Mr. President, I’ve said that twice now,” Gates replied.

“You should have come to us early on,” Sheinbaum continued. “We wanted to have some input into the area stations chosen. By the time you came to us, it would have been all wrapped up.”

“Mr. President, are you trying to set policy or run the Police Department?” Gates asked.

Commissioner Ann Reiss Lane also scolded Gates for failing to work with the commission. Lane said the commission’s reaction “was a forerunner of how the community will feel when the police present them with a program” without consulting neighborhood residents.

Lane’s point was echoed by several civilians who addressed the commission, including Meir J. Westreich, head of a group called the Coalition for Police Accountability.

“Clearly the program is already in planning without the public being involved,” Westreich said. “If we’re going to have a partnership, that means we have to be equal partners.

Westreich also called Gates’ choice of police stations for the pilot project--the Foothill, Northeast, Southeast, Pacific and Harbor divisions--”unconscionable” because they do not include neighborhoods represented by an African-American City Council member.

In an effort to build trust between the public and the police in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating, the City Council last month adopted a broad plan for community-based policing in which officers and residents work together on neighborhood crime problems. The council directed Gates to choose four divisions, or patrol areas, for a pilot project to begin in January.

In a hallway outside the commission’s meeting at Parker Center, Asst. Chief Robert Vernon explained Gates’ choices.

Harbor has an existing program the chief wants to serve as a model for the others, Vernon said. The other divisions were picked, Vernon said, because of their significant minority populations and a history of tension with the police, such as the Foothill Division in the northeast San Fernando Valley, where King was beaten by police March 3.

Gates acknowledged during the commission meeting that he has no detailed plan yet and it was not his intention to devise one.

The chief said he wanted to leave details to the captains of each participating police station and “empower them” by cutting out the Police Department’s middle management.

As he explained this, the chief held up a copy of Forbes magazine and said he had been inspired by an article on Japanese management techniques that streamline corporate bureaucracies.

Vernon said later that if the streamlined approach seems to work in community-based policing, Gates may move to permanently eliminate an entire level of management in the department.

Gates also wants the commission to choose one of its members to serve on an advisory panel on community policing that would include the department’s 18 division captains. The commission said it would consider the request to join the panel, which would meet monthly.

In a related matter, the City Council in secret session on Tuesday reached “substantial agreement” with the police union over an array of proposals for overhauling the department that will be put before voters in June, a councilman who attended the meeting said.

The proposals were recommended in the Christopher Commission report on the use of excessive force by the 8,300-member department in the wake of the police beating of motorist King.

Under state law, all of the proposals considered by the council in the three-hour executive session required negotiations with the Police Protective League because they involved labor issues, City Councilman Marvin Braude said.

Braude said the council considered at least nine major proposals, including changes in the makeup of Boards of Rights, which govern disciplinary actions against police officers. The boards, he said, would have a civilian along with police staff.

Braude said the statute of limitations for filing charges against an officer would be altered. Currently, a police officer can only be disciplined for an incident occurring during the previous year, but the Christopher Commission has recommended that the statute be extended.

While council voting on the issues has not been unanimous, Braude said, it has been “overwhelmingly in support of the Christopher Commission recommendations.”

However, he added, “nobody got everything they wanted.”

Police Protective League President Bill Violante declined to comment on Tuesday’s session--one of several such meetings between the council and the union over the last four months.

The council will meet again Thursday in closed session to finalize the consent and confer items to be placed on the June ballot as proposed City Charter amendments.

The City Council may place on the ballot measures it has presented as a final offer in negotiations with the union--even if the Protective League rejects them, Senior Assistant City Atty. Fred Merkin said.