Capable Captains Needed for Our Ship : Los Angeles: The city must be able to remove unresponsive department heads now protected for life under Civil Service.

Government-as-usual is not enough; people want change. The public has expressed these sentiments in recent elections and opinion polls. People want government to effectively work on the problems they face: festering crime, budgetary and financial uncertainties and strained public services in a flat economy.

A large part of our job as elected officials involves managing and overseeing Los Angeles’ bureaucracy. This is not an easy task, as its many huge and aged ships can resist being steered in new directions. And it is even more difficult because the captains of these ships--the department general managers--are insulated from public control by a lifetime protection that makes it impossible to terminate them even when they are seriously unresponsive or incapable. These top government officials are not being held accountable to the people they serve.

To change this structural flaw, the Los Angeles City Council voted Jan. 4 to place a measure that we co-authored on April’s ballot that would exempt general managers from the Civil Service. This measure will give us a tool to hold managers accountable for their performance. Capable captains are needed to guide the city’s ships. This change in the city charter will ensure that the city better serves the public for three main reasons:

* Public sentiment, not bureaucratic preferences, will drive policy. All major cities in the nation exempt their general managers from the Civil Service, including San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland, New York, Boston and Dallas. Even Los Angeles County department heads serve at the pleasure of the Board of Supervisors. Of course, provisions will be included to ensure due process so that general managers are evaluated fairly and protected from unjustified political ousters.

* General managers will be able to create and innovate more freely, but will be ultimately held accountable for results. Nowhere in the private sector is a senior executive granted lifetime tenure regardless of job performance. There is no reason why the city shouldn’t have the same rule. Job retention should be conditional on good performance, and this grants the executive greater freedom to produce results. Such freedom to innovate and create is needed as Los Angeles faces tough times ahead.

* It will ensure that the talents and style of the agency head matches the current challenges of his or her department. Different times call for different types of managers. The Police Department is a case in point. Chief Willie Williams was hired under a reform mandate in the aftermath of the Christopher Commission findings. His predecessor had to go, as his management abilities did not match the challenges facing the department. And while the ball was eventually passed to a new chief, that occurred only after the city was held hostage by 56-year-old archaic rules in the charter.

Fortunately, the citizens of Los Angeles voted for change in 1992, when they passed Charter Amendment F, which removed the police chief from the Civil Service. They also enacted term limits for City Council members and the mayor. The public wants a government that is accountable. The rotation and removal of unsatisfactory officials is a necessary feature. This change will help revitalize and reinvigorate city government.

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‘Nowhere in the private sector is a senior executive granted lifetime tenure regardless of job performance. There is no reason why the city shouldn’t have the same rule. Job retention should be conditional on good performance, and this grants the executive greater freedom to produce results.’