City Council Seeks Power to Fire Top Managers

Culver City voters may be asked to support a City Council-backed plan to make it easier to terminate the police chief, fire chief and three other top-level managers.

Department heads now are part of the city’s Civil Service system, which insulates them--in the same way that a union would--from being fired without just cause. The proposed change, which could be placed on the ballot as early as November, would give City Council members the final say on when top managers should be asked to leave.

“If the police chief is not doing his job, he knows he can be removed by the City Council,” Mayor Steve Gourley said of the proposed charter amendment. Now, top city employees can delay disciplinary action against them for months through Civil Service Commission hearings and other bureaucratic processes, he said.

Exempting these administrators from Civil Service protections would give City Council members greater authority over two powerful departments that have been problematic in the past year: the fire and police departments.

But critics doubt that the City Council, even if given more power, would actually fire anyone. “I don’t think the City Council has the time or expertise to really stay on top of these departments,” said resident Gary Silbiger, a member of the Culver City Community Network, a grass-roots political group.

The Culver City proposal duplicates a measure that Los Angeles voters approved in April that gives the mayor and council greater authority over 26 municipal general managers. Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan blamed the managers, some of whom make more than $100,000 a year, with holding up his efforts to streamline practices at City Hall.

Similar complaints have been uttered in Culver City’s new council chambers. Civil Service protection worked against city officials when they tried unsuccessfully last year to dismiss the city’s former fire chief, Michael Olson, for alleged mismanagement.

The push for Olson’s ouster came after city officials investigated the sexual harassment accusations of a female employee against the Fire Department’s top mechanic. The woman filed a lawsuit, which remains unresolved. During the probe, investigators uncovered information that Fire Department employees were using city equipment for personal use and that Olson had not been properly supervising the department.

The situation was resolved when Olson, who was on paid administrative leave, subsequently requested--and was granted--a disability retirement because of heart trouble.

Just months after Olson’s departure, Police Chief Ted Cooke disturbed the City Council when he hired former Los Angeles Police Department Officer Timothy Wind as a community services officer. Wind was one of the LAPD officers tried and acquitted in the beating of Rodney G. King. He was fired by the LAPD.

Though city policy did not require Cooke to seek permission for the controversial hiring, some council members at the time said they had learned of the police chief’s decision through media reports. Council members deny that it was Wind’s hiring that pitted them against the Civil Service system.

But Wind’s hiring angered numerous Culver City residents. They formed the Culver City Community Network and proposed that the city create commissions, appointed by the council, to oversee activities in the police and fire departments.

The council’s current effort to gain more control over Culver City department heads is not the answer, Silbiger said.

“This will centralize more power with the City Council and, once they have power, you know how hard it is to take that away,” he said.