Hanging Fire on Being Fired : Leslie Winner waits for the outcome of a dispute between the mayor and council on Fire Commission post.

As she awaits a City Council vote on her future, Leslie Song Winner hopes she won’t soon be known as the fire commissioner who got burned.

It has been nearly three months since Winner refused to resign at Mayor Richard Riordan’s request.

With that refusal, the once-obscure fire commissioner has become the center of a standoff between the mayor and some City Council members who say that Winner is crucial to the commission as its strongest advocate for women and minority firefighters. Her backers also say that Riordan’s swipe at Winner is an attack on affirmative action, which the mayor denies.

The mayor told Winner to leave the post two days after then-Fire Chief Donald O. Manning had stepped down after months of Fire Commission and City Council meetings questioning the department’s treatment of women and minorities.

Throughout the rancorous series of commission meetings, Winner, appointed by Riordan in July, 1993, was a thorn in Manning’s side, often upbraiding the chief in front of firefighters who came by the hundreds to the meetings.

For an upbeat mayor prone to boosterism, it was too much. Calling her “very disruptive,” Riordan, who had kept quiet during the controversy, said he wanted Winner off the five-member panel that oversees the Fire Department, emphasizing the need for “team players” on commissions.

It is no surprise that Winner, a longtime campaign consultant for liberal Democrats who is closely tied to the city’s African American political Establishment, would have trouble playing on Riordan’s team.

Riordan, a conservative millionaire, ran as an outsider who intended to shake up City Hall with corporate-style efficiency.

Winner rejects the idea that L.A. can be run like IBM. “That place isn’t a business,” she said, pointing to City Hall. “Government’s mission is to serve the public, and it can’t be run like a corporation.”

Winner’s plight also reveals the depth of a feud between two of Los Angeles’ leading black politicians. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angles), Winner’s political patron, has remained silent during the standoff, although sources close to the mayor’s office say that with a word from Waters, Riordan would not have pushed for Winner’s removal.

Those close to both say Waters didn’t speak up for her old friend because Winner, through her Fire Commission work, has gotten close to City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the congresswoman’s chief rival. Winner declined to comment on why Waters has not spoken out in her behalf.

Waters denied that Winner’s ties to Ridley-Thomas had anything to do with her silence. “A political appointment is not where I should pick fights,” she said.

Winner’s friends and longtime associates also say it is not surprising that she would work closely with Ridley-Thomas, who had asked for a city audit that allegedly found widespread race and sex discrimination in the department.

“She’s very passionate about racial justice issues, and will fight to the bitter end for them, sometimes to her own personal and political detriment,” said Rick Taylor, a political consultant who was once Winner’s partner. Her current situation, Taylor said, is a case in point.

Winner, 52, was almost born into politics. In 1962, her father, Alfred H. Song, became the first Asian American elected to the California Assembly.

Winner followed her father to Sacramento, where he had lined up a job for her as a secretary to a state senator.

Her father’s career may have drawn her to politics, but Winner says her activism can be traced to her paternal grandmother, Song Chung Yoon, a “picture bride” who left Korea for Hawaii at 16. Unhappy in her arranged marriage with a man she never loved, grandmother Song divorced her husband when Alfred Song was a teen-ager.

The two moved to Los Angeles, the grandmother worked as a seamstress and dress designer to put Alfred Song through college at USC, then law school. She lived her son’s family in South Los Angeles until the mid-1950s, when she moved back to Korea to start an orphanage for children left homeless in the aftermath of the Korean War.

Instead of seeking office like her father, Winner worked on political campaigns. While managing David Cunningham’s successful 1973 campaign for the City Council, she met Waters, another young activist.

Winner managed Waters’ first campaign for the state Assembly in 1976. But Winner never joined Waters in the Capitol, continuing to work for Cunningham and eventually becoming his chief of staff.

Winner and Waters stayed in touch, frequently talking on the phone about politics and their personal lives, and getting together for dinner or visits at Waters’ house. In 1990, Winner managed Waters’ successful campaign for Congress.

It was Waters who in 1993 recommended Winner to Riordan for a seat on the Fire Commission, Winner said. The new mayor was eager to start a friendly relationship with Waters, according to Winner.

One of the city’s most influential African American politicians, Waters might also be the member of the Los Angeles congressional delegation closest to President Clinton.

Political consultants also say Riordan was grateful to Waters for not endorsing his opponent, Mike Woo, in the mayor’s race.

The commission proved to be fertile ground for a civil rights firebrand.

A federal lawsuit in 1974 forced the city to agree that at least half of each incoming class of firefighter recruits be nonwhite. Fire officials have acknowledged that until 1993, the department maintained an unwritten policy that prohibited more than one black firefighter per four-person engine company.

Today, the Fire Department has made progress in integrating its rank-and-file workers. The 3,100-member department is 23% Latino (compared to 40% of the city), 11% African American (13% in the city) and 3.5% Asian American (6.7% in the city).

An American Civil Liberties Union study of regional fire departments released last year found that the city ranked among the top in racial and ethnic representation.

But a November, 1994, city audit was highly critical of the department, citing numerous examples of racism and sexism from interviews with firefighters, and noting that the top ranks were still nearly all white and male. Of the 20 top Fire Department officials, 19 are white men.

The report touched off debate on the commission about affirmative action and discrimination. Previously dull meetings came alive with firefighters testifying passionately about the presence--or lack--of racism and sexism.

Riordan spokeswoman Noelia Rodriguez emphasized that Winner’s style, not her views, turned Riordan against her, again raising the team analogy. “This is about approach and the teamwork necessary to bring about positive change,” Rodriguez said.

But Winner’s backers contend that Riordan is simply upset over Winner’s staunch backing of affirmative action. “What’s at stake is obvious. The most vocal proponent of affirmative action is being taken off,” said Ridley-Thomas.

Riordan insists that support for affirmative action is not the issue, noting that Michael Yamaki, a former police commissioner highly regarded by civil rights leaders, is his chosen replacement for Winner.

But Winner is nevertheless seen by many as the torchbearer for civil rights in the Fire Department.

“She’s our rallying point,” said David Spence, president of the Stentorians, a group that represents African American firefighters.

Neither the mayor nor Winner’s backers know whether they have the council votes to win. In the end, Winner’s fate will depend on who can field the bigger team.