Police Union Suspends Plans for Job Action : City Hall: Riordan asks the officers’ group to wait until after he takes office July 1.

The union representing Los Angeles police officers announced Wednesday that it was suspending its plans for a job action at the request of Mayor-elect Richard Riordan.

Riordan urged the union to hold off until after he takes office July 1.

William C. Violante, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said he spoke with Riordan on Tuesday night after the city and the union reached an impasse in their long-running contract talks. Although Violante would not discuss what types of job actions were being considered, other officers said they had discussed ideas ranging from a strike to a mass sick day--known as the “blue flu”--to a temporary halt in writing traffic tickets.

The suggestion to suspend ticket writing appears to have support among many police officers, who believe it would send a signal of their dissatisfaction without running the risk of angering the public, as a strike surely would. The union represents more than 7,000 rank-and-file police officers. They have been working without a contract for more than a year.

After talks broke down late Monday, union leaders called Riordan, who won the league’s endorsement during the recent mayoral campaign, to inform him that they were considering a job action of one kind or another.

“Mr. Riordan asked the board of directors to return to the bargaining table,” Violante said at an afternoon news conference. “Mr. Riordan wanted the police officers to know that he wanted an opportunity to see what the final state budget was going to be, and asked us to continue negotiating until he gets into office and can examine the issues we are negotiating.”

Although Violante would not characterize the league’s decision as a favor to its chosen candidate, he added that the league considers the mayor-elect a “friend of police officers, something that we have not had in 20 years in this city.”

Riordan, who was expected to return last night from a five-day Idaho vacation, could not be reached for comment. But his transition spokesman said he was pleased that the union’s decision.

Meanwhile, Riordan’s staff announced that he will travel to Washington for two days next week to try to meet with Cabinet officials, to host a get-acquainted lunch with the city’s congressional delegation, and to attend a previously scheduled meeting among three members of the City Council, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) involving the cash-strapped city’s use of airport revenues.

The meeting in Washington, originally scheduled by City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, council Budget Committee Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky and council President John Ferraro, is to push for federal legislation that would implement a City Charter change allowing officials to use airport revenues for other purposes.

Current federal law requires that airport revenue stay at the airport, and contracts at Los Angeles International Airport require that any profits be used to reduce airlines’ landing fees. Thus, when parking fees were raised about a year ago at LAX, profits were increased but taxpayers received no benefit. Instead, landing fees were reduced, said the city’s chief legislative analyst, William R. McCarley. But those contracts are expiring. And city officials are seeking permission to implement the charter change, approved by voters last year, that would allow the city to divert surplus money from the airport to pay for services such as police and fire protection.

McCarley said he believes the city could divert $25 million to $40 million per year from the airport, while maintaining reasonable landing fees, if Congress changed the law.

Yaroslavsky said airport officials already have saved $25 million this year for use by the city if federal legislation is passed.

Berman has said he favors such legislation.

“I want to help the city of Los Angeles find a way to use the airport fund to get more police,” he said Wednesday.

But airlines--many of which are also financially strapped--are expected to fight the city’s efforts.

City officials emphasized that next week’s meeting is not about Riordan’s controversial plan to lease LAX to private operators and use the lease payments to put more police on the streets.

In other developments:

* The City Council agreed to set up a special $100,000 trust fund that would allow private donors to make contributions to pay for Riordan’s transition and inauguration.

The proposal, approved 9 to 1, will allow City Controller Rick Tuttle oversight of the donations and expenditures. The Riordan transition team has agreed to itemize donations on campaign forms, city officials said.

Unspent money would be forwarded to the city’s general fund.

If the council had not set up the trust fund, Riordan would have been limited to $25,000 in private donations because the money would have been viewed under state law as an officeholder account, Assistant City Atty. Tony Alperin said.

The Riordan transition team made the proposal in consultation with the city Ethics Commission, but the plan did not have the $100,000 spending limit, which was proposed by Yaroslavsky to allay concerns that it could open the door to other city officials setting up unlimited funds for their own special purposes.

Gary Mendoza, co-counsel to Riordan’s transition team, said $100,000 would be enough to pay staff salaries and other expenses of the three-week transition but might not cover all the costs of the inauguration. Some public funds might have to be used for that, he said.

Yaroslavsky responded that the council would raise the limit within reason if more money were needed for the inaugural.

* Hoping to steer clear of ethics controversies, Riordan’s advisers say they are planning to require potential appointees to sign forms indicating they understand state and local conflict-of-interest laws and will abide by them.

The Ethics Commission is working with the transition team to develop a distilled summary of the legal obligations and prohibitions affecting city commissioners and mayoral staff members.

“It will be an acknowledgment they read it, they understand it and will comply,” Mendoza said. “We want to make sure (ethics officials) never have to bring (an enforcement action) with respect to people we put in office.”

City commissioners and staff members have been given packets of information on ethics laws in the past. But ethics officials said they believed this was the first time nominees would be systematically required to sign statements saying they knew the law.

Mendoza said Riordan will go beyond the requirements of the law in other areas. By week’s end, a proposal to create a blind trust for Riordan’s estimated $100-million fortune will be submitted to the ethics agency and the city attorney for review, he said. Riordan will shortly submit a plan to divest himself of his interest in a downtown law firm, Riordan & McKinzie, which performs local government legal work.

* Riordan’s staff also said that the mayor-elect will ride in the annual Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade on June 27.

“Dick has a broad base of support and the gay and lesbian community is an important community in Los Angeles,” said Annette Castro, Riordan’s press secretary. “He’s going to be a mayor for all of Los Angeles.”

Times staff writers Marc Lacey, Bettina Boxall and Rich Connell contributed to this story.