Police Commissioner Fired After She Complained of Dispute : Burbank: Linda Acaldo contends authorities interfered in a conflict with neighbors.

A police commissioner was fired Tuesday night after she complained that the city’s Police Department improperly meddled in a running dispute she has with her neighbors.

Linda Acaldo, who is a county prosecutor, said she was surprised to hear of her dismissal and contends the trouble with her neighbors began over the innocuous issue of whether their children should play with each other.

In April, Acaldo filed a claim against the city of Burbank seeking at least $20,000 in damages and saying the Police Department inappropriately encouraged her neighbors to get a restraining order that barred her and her son from going near their property.

On Tuesday, apparently without Acaldo’s knowledge, the City Council unanimously voted to replace her immediately with Gregory P. Orland, a Los Angeles deputy city attorney.

“To me, the whole thing has escalated just beyond ridiculous,” Acaldo, 47, said Wednesday. “The Burbank Police Department is there to be police. They are not attorneys. They should not be advising people to get restraining orders.”

Burbank Police Chief Dave Newsham, Mayor Dave Golonski and City Atty. Joe Fletcher declined to discuss Acaldo’s claim, which is still being investigated by the city’s legal and risk-management offices.

City Councilman Ted McConkey said he voted to replace Acaldo because her claim poses an uncomfortable work atmosphere for her and Newsham. The police commissioners, advisory board members who serves at the pleasure of the City Council, review police policy and other departmental matters although they have no binding powers.

“She named him personally in a claim,” McConkey said. “It’s not a good situation to have a police commissioner who is working with the chief of police when she has filed a claim against him. How would you separate personal feelings from professional judgment?”

A police commissioner since 1992, Acaldo had two years of her term left with the five-member board and says she could have easily completed it while her claim was still pending.

The Police Department, she said, is “so afraid of criticism, they’ve got to get rid of it. If my claim is valid, then why am I being thrown off the police commission for rattling cages?”

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Acaldo said the dispute with her next-door neighbors, Leon and Dionne Bradshaw, began last year when Acaldo’s son, now 7, reportedly threatened to shoot the Bradshaw’s son, who is about the same age. Acaldo maintains she does not keep a gun in her house, and that her son was merely boasting.

The Bradshaws could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But their former attorney, Wallace Friedman, confirmed much of what Acaldo recalled.

Trying to keep their child away from Acaldo’s son, the Bradshaws reportedly told her they did not want the youngsters playing together anymore.

Acaldo said she began keeping her own son indoors, but became increasingly resentful when the Bradshaws’ son repeatedly played on her property anyway.

Acaldo fired off an angry letter to the Bradshaws, saying she would take unspecified steps to protect herself if she ever found their child on her property with any type of weapon, according to police.

The letter’s tone prompted the Bradshaws to seek a restraining order against Acaldo and her son, said police spokesman Leonard Doran.

A temporary restraining order was eventually issued on March 17, ordering Acaldo and her son to stay at least two feet away from the Bradshaws’ home for three weeks.

But because their houses in the 1300 block of North Ontario Street are so close to each other, Acaldo says she was prevented from using portions of her own property.

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When the case came before a Superior Court judge in Burbank in April, he denied an extension of the restraining order, saying: “Children’s behavior is not something that is the subject of restraining orders against adults in adult courts.”

In her claim against the city, Acaldo states she and her son were “injured” in their inability to travel freely and enjoy their own property, among other things.