Quiet Woman Suddenly Caught in Turbulence at L.A. City Hall : Politics: Flap over airport panel appointee and her views on affirmative action may upset balance of power between mayor, council.

A quiet-spoken woman who has often lived in the shadow of others, Michelle Park-Steel now finds herself at the center of a firestorm.

Park-Steel--appointed by Mayor Richard Riordan to the city’s Airport Commission--faces a City Council majority that wants the mayor to fire her--either because of uncertainties about her views on affirmative action or because some council members believe she lied to them.

Whether or not she survives as a commissioner, the controversy over her appointment has had wide ramifications.

It has further rocked Riordan’s unsteady relations with the council, particularly its liberal and minority members, who accuse the mayor of harboring anti-affirmative action ideologues in his official family.

Park-Steel too--quite unintentionally--may have upset a fragile City Hall balance of power that has traditionally permitted mayors to appoint whomever they pleased to the city’s commissions, without much fear of being challenged by the council.

Now, some council members are vowing to make affirmative action a litmus test as they exercise their role of confirming mayoral appointees. Other council members have said that they intend to examine more closely the views and backgrounds of future appointees.

The mayor’s office says any reversal of the council’s longstanding laissez-faire role in the appointment process would be disruptive.

“It would be a dangerous precedent to have a [political] litmus test,” said Riordan spokeswoman Noelia Rodriguez. “The danger is that people will shy away from serving as volunteer commissioners because they will have to appear before the neighborhood bullies.”

Park-Steel, 40, a former ski champion and Korean immigrant, has repeatedly refused to answer Times calls seeking an interview.

Her husband--Shawn Steel, an attorney and a prominent GOP activist--has been similarly silent. And he, according to sources familiar with the couple, is why Park-Steel finds herself at City Hall, and at the center of controversy.

“Michelle is a fine person, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that it’s her husband’s prominence in the Republican Party that plays a major role in her public life,” said one political activist, who asked not to be identified.

Steel, 49, is treasurer of the California Republican Party and a man with a record of affiliating himself with conservative causes. One of these is the campaign for the “California civil rights initiative,” a proposed state ballot measure that would attack traditional affirmative action programs.

Less than a month ago, Steel sent a letter to hundreds of GOP activists, urging them to help fund the drive to put the initiative on the ballot.

Questions about his wife’s involvement with the initiative campaign and her views on affirmative action thrust her into the current City Hall controversy.

It began with the discovery that Park-Steel, then a Riordan appointee to the Fire Commission, wrote a 1994 article questioning a Fire Department affirmative action plan that prohibited 5,000 whites from taking a firefighter exam.

On Wednesday, during Park-Steel’s confirmation hearing, Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg asked her if she supported the city’s affirmative action policies. Park-Steel said she did.

Those replies helped quiet the concerns of some doubting council members, as did her personal testimonial. “I lived in Japan as a Korean for six years, and I believe I know about the discrimination those Koreans went through [in Japan],” she said.

Park-Steel was confirmed by the council, 8-6. But a few hours later, “civil rights initiative” campaign manager Joe Gelman said Park-Steel had endorsed the campaign.

Although she later said Gelman misrepresented her views, Park-Steel lost a lot of credibility with her council supporters. On Friday, an angry council voted 9-1 to urge the mayor to dismiss Park-Steel.

The dismissal measure lacked the 10 votes needed for emergency passage. On Tuesday, however, the same motion, appearing as a non-emergency measure on that day’s council agenda, will need only eight votes.