City Council OKs $6,000 for Trips by Lame-Duck Members : Politics: Moore and Woods, who are leaving office July 1, get funds to attend a mayors conference in New York this Friday.

The City Council decided this week to spend nearly $6,000 to send two lame-duck council members to a national conference in New York.

Just two weeks before they will leave office, Councilwomen Patricia A. Moore and Bernice Woods asked to attend the 61st Annual Conference of Mayors from Friday through Tuesday. The conference draws mayors and city council members from all over the country.

Newly appointed Councilman Ronald Green also will attend. Of the five-member council, only Mayor Omar Bradley and Councilwoman Jane D. Robbins, whose husband is ill, do not plan to attend.

The council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the trips, which will cost $2,915 per person. On July 1, Woods will be replaced by Yvonne Arceneaux and Moore by Marcine Shaw. Neither of the new councilwomen asked to attend the conference.

The council also authorized travel expenses for Bradley, but he decided Wednesday not to go, a council staff member said.

The city will pay the $525 registration fee for Green, who was appointed last week to fill Bradley’s seat on the council. Green, a systems engineer at Martin Marietta, already will be in New York on business.

The cost to the city for the trip includes $693 each for plane tickets, $1,340 each to cover four nights in a hotel, and $75 a day each for meals.

Woods, who was defeated in her bid for reelection in the 3rd Council District, said she put her travel request on the agenda last week.

“I am still a representative of this city,” Woods said hotly when asked about the trip after Tuesday night’s vote. “I am not going on a pleasure trip.”

Moore, who gave up her 2nd District seat in an unsuccessful bid for mayor, didn’t plan to attend the conference until Tuesday, when, during the meeting, she asked that her name be added.

“I just didn’t want them to go to this conference without getting the same rights. It’s a matter of fairness,” Moore said. “I may not even go.”

The council approved the travel request without discussion.

Bradley, a longtime Woods ally, defended her right to go to the conference, saying the city always sends more than one official to conferences of this type.

“Our policy is that if someone wants to go to these meetings, the city pays for it,” Bradley said. “We’ve got to make some decisions on the budget and (Woods) may learn something there to aid her decisions.

“And after all of her years of service, I don’t think people will question Ms. Woods’ decision to go.”

Woods is finishing her first term on the council and was a member of the Compton Unified School Board for 12 years before joining the council.

When asked if taxpayer money should be spent on trips for outgoing council members, both Moore and Woods said they intend to carry on as community representatives.

“I will still be active in my community, so it isn’t a waste of money,” Moore said.

Said Woods: “It’s my taxpaying dollars too. And I am still going to be here, helping this community after I leave the council.”

Both Arceneaux and Shaw were in the audience for Tuesday night’s vote, but neither woman spoke out for or against the council’s action.

Compton sent only former Mayor Walter R. Tucker III to the last two mayors conferences at a cost of $1,578 and $1,917.