In Chief’s Case, Politicians Play Duck and Cover

Councilwoman Laura Chick was fighting a bad cold Thursday when a member of the audience asked a question that could have only made her feel worse.

A woman attending the San Fernando Valley seniors meeting wanted to know whether Chick would support Police Chief Willie L. Williams for a second term.

Williams, the councilwoman replied, has her loyalty and support. That will continue if the Police Commission reappoints him next year. But she said she didn’t have a role in determining Williams’ fate. Picking a chief is the commission’s job, she said, and “I want to remain very respectful of that.”

I was seated in the back row, next to veteran City Hall gadfly Leonard Shapiro, now a columnist for the L.A. Watts Times. The answer clearly didn’t make sense to him. He thought his ears had failed him and, in his loud stage whisper, he asked me to repeat what she had said.

His hearing was fine. He hadn’t missed a thing. I scrawled a note to him, not wanting to anger a man a couple of rows ahead of us who had complained earlier about our loud talking. “She ducked,” I wrote.

Join the club, councilwoman. Most council members and Mayor Richard Riordan are ducking questions about whether Williams should remain in his $173,202 job for another five-year term. They’re madly passing the buck to the Police Commission.

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This run from responsibility is a sudden change in our politicians’ relationship with the Police Department and the five-member commission that supervises it.

Back in 1992, after the police beating of Rodney King, then-Mayor Tom Bradley and the council showed no reluctance in taking a well-needed and strong hand in department affairs.

The Christopher Commission, supported by both the mayor and the council, investigated the department and proposed a drastic overhaul, including removing the chief from Civil Service protection. Such protection had made it all but impossible for civilian authorities to discipline the chief.

The commission recommended that the Board of Police Commissioners, appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council, hire the police chief for a five-year term. At the end of the term, the board could extend the chief’s tenure for another five years or get a new commanding officer.

Determined to keep politicians out of the process, the Christopher Commission recommended that the Police Commission’s decision “should be final and not subject to being overruled by the mayor or the council.”

The council, jealous of its authority, refused to go along. Not wanting to give up anything to a commission appointed by the mayor, especially when it came to the Police Department, the council rewrote the recommendation. Council members invested themselves with the power to overturn Police Commission recommendations. This crucial council revision was included in the police reform measure approved by the voters in 1992.

The council exerted this power in 1995 when it threw out the Police Commission’s decision to discipline Chief Williams. Commissioners had reprimanded the chief, charging that he had lied to them about accepting free hotel accommodations in Las Vegas.

This is not the only time in recent years that politicians have thrust themselves into police affairs. Riordan has frequently taken an active role in police management decisions, seeking to push Williams to accelerate the hiring of more cops. Council members have peppered the department with advice and demands, sending in consultants and authorizing other studies to try to make the department more efficient.

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But now that things are hot, when they are afraid of the fallout from dumping an apparently still-popular chief who is also African American, the politicians run.

Mayor Riordan conveniently forgets that he appointed the Police Commission. Council members don’t remember that they voted to confirm the commissioners--and gave themselves authority to overrule the commission.

Next time you hear them duck the most important question at City Hall, remind them of their responsibilities.