New Police Panel Head Vows to Work With Chief

Meeting for the first time since its controversial bid to reprimand Chief Willie L. Williams was reversed, a scaled-down Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday elected a new president who vowed to steer the panel back to “business as usual” and to work with Williams.

Deirdre Hill, 34, a business lawyer, was elected 3-0 to head the commission, two of whose five members resigned to protest a June 20 City Council decision to lift the commission’s reprimand of the chief.

“We’re moving forward beyond the council’s action and are addressing public safety issues,” Hill said in an interview. “There’s no question that the investigation [of Williams] has been somewhat of a distraction, but now it’s business as usual.”

Hill is the first African American woman to head the commission since it was founded in 1925.

Art Mattox, a Xerox Corp. executive, was elected vice president.

The reprimand of the chief stemmed from allegations that Williams lied to his commissioner-bosses about taking free rooms at a Las Vegas hotel-casino. The commission unanimously recommended the reprimand and it was upheld by Mayor Richard Riordan, but the council overturned the action on a 12-1 vote.

Within days, commission President Enrique Hernandez Jr. and Rabbi Gary Greenebaum resigned, charging that the council action--taken without reviewing the commission’s investigative report--was insulting. Two new members have yet to be appointed.

Shortly after her election Tuesday to the presidency by the remaining commission members--Mattox and San Fernando Valley car dealer Bert Boeckmann III--Hill called for a return to normalcy, citing as her first priority the implementation of the reform proposals of the Christopher Commission and establishment of five task forces to help in this regard.

In an apparent gesture of renewed cooperation with Williams, Hill modified a December, 1994, commission decision and gave the chief a bigger role in overseeing implementation of the Christopher Commission reforms.

In December, 1994, the Police Commission, frustrated by the department’s slowness in carrying out the reforms, decided that the panel--not Williams and the department--would oversee their implementation.

But on Tuesday, Hill named herself and Williams as co-chairs of the Christopher Commission reforms implementation subcommittee.

“I don’t know if I’d call it an olive branch, but the president wanted to extend the partnership to the chief of police,” said the commission’s executive director, Richard Dameron.

Hill said she will convene the first meeting of the implementation subcommittee in August. “At that time, Chief Williams and I will present revised implementation guidelines and assume responsibility for all subsequent direction and actions taken to realize integrated and appropriate systemic change,” Hill said in a memo to her colleagues on the commission.

Hill said the Williams’ controversy had waylaid the commission’s original plans for taking over the reform process.

In another departure from the December, 1994, action, Hill said she wants representatives of community groups and police employee organizations on the implementation task forces. Previously, the task forces were to include only commission members, commission staff and people appointed by the chief.

Hill added that her priorities would be ending discrimination in the LAPD workplace and in its hiring and promotion of employees. She also said she would move to quickly hire an inspector general to take over the review of citizen complaints about police abuses. Voters in April approved a charter amendment creating the independent inspector general position.

Meanwhile, at City Hall on Tuesday, Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas urged his colleagues to have Controller Rick Tuttle audit a $1-million city contract held for the past year by Inter-Con Security Systems, a firm headed by former Police Commission President Hernandez.

Ridley-Thomas said the council needs to get to the bottom of allegations, made by an official with the city Department of General Services, that Inter-Con has failed to adequately perform its contract responsibilities.

No action was taken Tuesday by lawmakers, who heard several Inter-Con executives--including Hernandez’s father, Hank, the firm’s founder--call the allegations unfounded.

“They are an attempt to smear the company,” said the elder Hernandez, who added that he welcomed an independent review of Inter-Con’s performance.

Enrique Hernandez, who is now president of Inter-Con, did not testify before the council.

Under its contract, Inter-Con has provided security for the city at 40 locations, including the Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Park. The contract expires Aug. 1 and General Services manager Randall Bacon has told Inter-Con he does not intend to exercise his option to extend the contract for two years.

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Profile: Deirdre Hill Hill is the newly elected president of the Los Angeles Police Commission. She is the first African American woman to preside over the 70-year-old commission.

* Born: July 25, 1960. She is the daughter of state Sen. Teresa Hughes (D-Inglewood).

* Residence: Baldwin Hills.

* Education: Law degree from Loyola Law School, 1985. Undergraduate degree from UC Santa Barbara.

* Career highlights: Senior associate with the Westwood-based law firm of Saltzburg, Ray & Bergman, practicing business law. Appointed to the Police Commission in 1993 by Mayor Richard Riordan.

* Family: Married to Samuel (Joey) Hill; one daughter, Erin.