Council to Study Waiving $9,500 Fee for Williams Event

The Los Angeles City Council will consider today whether to waive $9,500 in rental fees associated with a breakfast at the Convention Center this week honoring Police Chief Willie L. Williams.

It was at the breakfast Tuesday that Williams announced he intends to seek a second five-year term running the nation’s third-largest law enforcement agency.

The motion by council members Rita Walters and Mark Ridley-Thomas, two strong Williams supporters at City Hall, asks lawmakers to declare the $5-a-head breakfast an event that “serves a public purpose by bringing community groups together to build peace and unity in the city.” It calls the motion “an exception” to the council’s waiver policy, and asks members to ignore the $7,500 in hall rental and $2,000 in sound equipment fees.

Organizers said the 1,000 guests’entrance fees paid for the food.

“It’s a standard fee waiver for an event that was open to the public and nonreligious. We do them all the time,” said Walters’ chief of staff Jan Perry, noting that the city attorney’s office had declared the motion legal. “This is a by-the-book motion.”