ANALYSIS : Curtains for Myers--but Dispute Is Far From Over : Politics: <i> Now </i> what happens to the homeless? The firing of the city attorney raises as many questions as it resolves.

Robert M. Myers was the star of his own firing as Santa Monica city attorney last week.

With the help of friends, he turned an event often associated with disgrace into something resembling a testimonial dinner with him as guest of honor.

There he was, in his Sunday-best gray suit, circling the dais, shaking hands graciously with the City Council members who had just voted to oust him. There they were, his squirming executioners, being hissed by the crowd.

Myers left the council chambers awash in the adulation of his cheering fans. A bouquet of long-stemmed red roses was thrust into his hands. The card read “Our Hero.” All that was missing was the white horse to carry him off into the sunset.

Now that the scene is over, however, the real scene will begin--and for that there is no script. In some respects, Myers’ departure raises as many questions as it resolves.

Will the city finally be able to implement a comprehensive program to deal with its large homeless contingent, or will an accord remain as elusive as ever?

Has Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, the coalition that dominates city politics, dodged a bullet by ousting Myers? Or is voter frustration over the homeless stalemate so great that SMRR’s control of the City Council is still in jeopardy in the Nov. 3 election?

“How this plays itself out will be anybody’s guess,” said Councilman Dennis Zane, the leader in the effort to dismiss the man he professes to love like a brother.

Myers’ numerous fans predict that the firing of an icon by his longtime allies will be viewed as the ultimate disloyalty and will backfire.

There were hints of that at the council session last week.

“They’re pandering to a constituency that’s not theirs and forsaking their own constituency,” said activist Julie Lopez Dad. “They have destroyed SMRR and will lose in November.”

Four council seats are up for election. Two are vacant, and council members Judy Abdo and Ken Genser--both backed by SMRR--are seeking reelection.

Already, some of Myers’ friends have vowed an all-out civil war at the group’s convention later this fall. They say the SMRR council members are out of touch with the rank and file, who revere Myers as the father of the city’s tough rent control law and its critical protector.

The anti-Myers forces, instead of leaping for joy at his departure, are worried that the firing is nothing more than a grand gesture timed for the November election.

“You have a bunch of people who will do anything to stay in power, including firing their hero,” said Councilman Herb Katz.

Homeowner activist Jean Sedillos fretted that even without Myers, nothing really will change in the city’s strategy toward homeless people who violate city laws.

In the interim, at least, she may be right about that. Acting City Atty. Joseph Lawrence said Thursday he has no plans to alter Myers’ policy of refusing to prosecute violators of the city ordinance forbidding camping in public places.

A new city attorney will be selected after what city officials said would be a national search.

Katz has been trying to fire Myers for almost a year for his refusal to go along with council policies aimed at cutting crime and keeping the city’s homeless population from taking over public places.

The vote has always been 5 to 2--with Katz and fellow dissenter Robert Holbrook always outnumbered by the five SMRR allies. On occasion, the SMRR council members delivered public accolades to Myers even as he, figuratively speaking, spat in their eyes by calling their plans “repressive” and unworthy of his staff’s time.

Each time that Katz publicly urged Myers’ removal, he was scolded by Zane for trying to make political gain from a serious matter. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Admirers and critics of Myers are joining in accusing the council majority of being political animals who sniff voter discontent over their handling of the homeless issue.

Councilman Kelly Olsen insisted last week that the difficult decision to fire Myers was made for the right reasons.

“The political thing would have been to wait until after the election,” he said. It would have been easy enough, Olsen said, to bury the latest controversial matter--regulating the use of the parks by large groups--for a few months by sending it back for more staff work.

Indeed, Myers suggested doing just that, Olsen said, adding, “I said that would be dishonest.”

Myers, long noted for his outspoken advocacy of civil liberties, said his relationship with his council allies has been stormy since October, when he basically said they were heartless and inhumane for subjecting homeless people who sleep in the park to “the indignity of a criminal arrest.”

Genser and Olsen said they were finally pushed over the edge two weeks ago when Myers gave them his bottom line: He would stymie any element of the Homeless Task Force recommendations that in his opinion would discourage homeless people from migrating to Santa Monica.

Myers told them he believed the city could easily absorb many more homeless people, who presented but a “minor inconvenience” to the rest of the residents.

“I felt he was being intransigent,” Genser said.

Indeed, Myers himself recalls telling council members there would be no compromise. “I told them if they didn’t like it, they could fire me,” he said.

Myers’ precarious status was evident last month, when both City Manager John Jalili and Police Chief James Butts--interviewed separately about their relationships with the city attorney--were often guarded and uneasy.

In assessing the relationship between the police chief and Myers, Jalili stressed that the two were cordial and professional to one another, and that differences over the homeless issue had “not deteriorated to a personal vendetta.”

But when asked point-blank to speculate on whether Myers and Butts could function as a crime-fighting team, Jalili replied, “That’s a bad question.”

Butts wasn’t comfortable with the question, either.

Instead, he spoke with a slight air of resignation as he described his working relationship with Myers. Though taking pains to stress that he viewed Myers as a principled man and a skillful lawyer, he also left no doubt that he felt stymied by Myers’ refusal to prosecute illegal campers.

“It’s an ethical dilemma,” he said. “You can’t arrest people knowing their cases won’t be reviewed by a judge.”

At one point during the interview, Butts, who served as a deputy chief in Inglewood, spoke nostalgically of his close working relationship with the city attorney there. He also seemed incredulous about the hornet’s nest that is political life in Santa Monica.

About the time that Butts was waxing nostalgic for his Inglewood days, Zane told Myers he should resign. He later sweetened the deal by offering Myers his full severance of about $82,000 if he would go quietly. “They tried to pay me to quit,” Myers said.

But going quietly is not Myers’ way. He refused, then left for a planned vacation.

Everything was quiet in the dog days of August, but when Myers returned, he put in writing what he had already told council members individually: He would not be a part of the proposed parks regulation.

“My view is the objective (of the proposed ordinance) is to limit the outdoor feeding programs . . . and ultimately to limit the number of homeless people in Santa Monica.”

It was deja vu all over again.

By Sept. 2, Myers said, he knew three of his former allies were prepared to dump him. On Labor Day, as always, the Santa Monica Democratic Club was host at its annual picnic--a must-attend event for the extended political family that runs the city. Beneath the surface solidarity, a schism was about to erupt, though only a handful of people knew what was going on.

Rent Control Board member Lisa Monk Borrino said she chatted with Zane for half an hour, but he offered no hints of what was to come the next day. That evening, Borrino said, she was asked to a meeting at Zane’s house to discuss city issues. Borrino--a Myers supporter--didn’t go.

The issue was Myers. Zane ran the meeting, at which he, Genser and Abdo told about 30 SMRR insiders of their plans to fire Myers the next night. Those in attendance said reaction was mixed, and tears were shed. The firing was presented as a fait accompli , not a matter for discussion. “It was damage control,” Borrino said.

By midday Tuesday, what had been a secret swept across town like a brush fire.

Almost everyone was stunned that, whatever their motives, Myers’ allies on the council had mustered the moxie to bid the local icon farewell.

At the council meeting, however, it was the council members who were in for a hard time. They looked out at the crowd with a deer-in-the-headlights stare as angry Myers fans jeered.

“I do this in agony,” Olsen told the crowd. In a later interview, he said the occasion reminded him of the way he felt on the deaths of his grandmother, John Lennon and Robert F. Kennedy.

The Myers supporters were unmoved.

“Shame! Shame!” they shouted, as an era in Santa Monica politics came to a tumultuous close, with Myers, as is his style, having what amounted to the last word.