Initiative Will Invite Corruption,Gates Says : LAPD: Chief warns that ballot measure to reform the department will bring conditions similar to scandal-prone 1930s. Supporters of the charter changes call the criticism unfair.

In a prelude to an expected high-stakes campaign over how to reform the Los Angeles Police Department, Chief Daryl F. Gates warned Thursday that a proposed June ballot measure would politicize the department and invite corruption.

“It will lead to the situation that you had in the 1930s when corruption in this department was rampant,” Gates said at a downtown forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters.

“The next chief of police will be a toady, and if this charter change takes place, he will sit there and he will be counting his votes,” Gates said. “Do I have enough votes on the City Council to prevent my being fired?”

Supporters of the ballot measure blasted the comparison as unfair and insisted that fundamental reform is necessary to mend relations between residents and the Police Department. They said Los Angeles city government has changed since the corruption-prone 1930s and that Gates has exaggerated the risks of the proposed reforms.

“There was tragedy in the ‘30s, but it wasn’t because one mayor could appoint one police chief,” said Andrea Sheridan Ordin, president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. “We have to look at today’s ‘90s. We have to look at the realistic checks and balances that exist today.”

The proposed ballot measure, which the City Council intends to place before voters June 2, would significantly change the selection process and tenure for the police chief and enhance the powers of the citizen Police Commission, which oversees the department.

The proposed reforms are an outgrowth of recommendations made last summer by the Christopher Commission, which reviewed department operations after the police beating of motorist Rodney G. King last March.

Among the proposals opposed by Gates are reforms that would increase the authority of the mayor and City Council over the police chief. The ballot measure would give the council new powers to consider whether a chief should be terminated, and could fire the chief by a two-thirds vote. It would also allow the mayor to select a new chief from three candidates named by the Personnel Department.

Under the current system, the chief, like all city department general managers, has Civil Service protection and can be ousted only if found guilty of misconduct. Police Commissioner Ann Reiss Lane said the standard has been so difficult to meet that chiefs and other department heads have been virtually impossible to fire.

Reiss said the feeling at City Hall has been that, as a chief or general manager, “you had to rape your grandmother on public television in the Central Library rotunda” to lose your job. She said the Police Department would be more responsive to the Police Commission and the City Council if the charter changes were approved.

“I don’t think there is anything wrong with a police chief who has five commissioners who are his bosses, and has to keep at least three of them happy,” Lane said. “If you look at that as politicization, then so be it.”

But in an impassioned argument against the proposed changes, Donald H. Clinton, president of Clinton Restaurants, said his home was bombed by two police officers in 1937 because his father sought to expose corruption in local government. The turmoil led to the recall of then-Mayor Frank Shaw and to changes in the City Charter insulating the Police Department from political influence and elected officials.

Clinton said the changes have resulted in a “clean, honest and corruption-free” Police Department. He said the charter provides sufficient oversight of the department and chief through the Police Commission, whose members are appointed by the mayor with City Council confirmation.

The city needs “good, honest” commissioners, he said, not changes to the charter.

Talking to reporters after the forum, Gates reiterated his promise to retire “right after the election” in June, but he also made it clear that he will not go into hiding--at least not before Mayor Tom Bradley faces reelection next year.

“That guy needs to be defeated, and I am hopeful next year somebody will do that,” Gates said.