Laura Chick

Nearly four years ago, Laura Chick beat out her former boss, City Councilwoman Joy Picus, for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. Since then, she has gone from a political neophyte to the influential head of the council’s Public Safety Committee, which oversees the police and fire departments.

Chick, who is seeking reelection to her 3rd District seat, faces only one opponent, businessman Mort Diamond. In this interview she talks about the leadership problems in City Hall and the Los Angeles Police Department, her battles with Mayor Richard Riordan and thoughts about running for mayor. Maybe.

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Question: What would you say has been your greatest accomplishment in your first four-year term?

Answer: The thing about which I’m the most satisfied and proud is the adoption of the school truancy laws because I think it’s a really significant piece of legislation. This ordinance allows police officers to issue something similar to a traffic citation to the youth who is out of school. That citation brings the youth and the parent or guardian into juvenile traffic court within 30 days.

Q. Was there anything that you really had difficulty with that maybe you would like to do over again?

A. Well, I think one of my accomplishments that was the most difficult to achieve was the change in the sewer service fee [which reduced fees for most San Fernando Valley and Westside residents but increased them elsewhere]. There are no regrets on my part in terms of how I worked at this, but it was one of my toughest and most elongated battles.

Q. Your proposal for the sewage rate change caused a lot of animosity among council members.

A. I understood and accepted the fact that there were some of my colleagues who simply could not vote for this because they could not conceive of it as anything except negative for their constituents. What was not acceptable to me was that in order to stop it and attempt a last-minute defeat of it, they got up and walked out of the room to break the quorum. It was something I had never seen before and I hope I never see again.

Q. You’re coming up on your reelection campaign. Talk about your goals for the next four years, assuming you are reelected.

A. It’s a continuation of some of the things that I haven’t yet accomplished. In terms of public safety I am absolutely committed to a very integrated and comprehensive plan for the city of Los Angeles that will include not only the expansion of the LAPD but the modernizing of the LAPD. But I also will put a whole variety of the other pieces on the table as part of that plan, including our efforts to create programs for the youth.

Q. Secession and efforts to reform the city’s 72-year-old charter have been big issues in the Valley, yet you have not been vocal about either one. Why not? What are your thoughts on those issues?

A. I think one reason that I haven’t been more in the middle of both of those issues is that I have had a very full plate of really concrete, everyday, quality-of-life problems that I have been very focused on addressing. That is not to say that I’m not aware of the importance of both charter reform and the secession issue, but they are big, ongoing and somewhat amorphous policy issues.

First, let me address secession. I think that all of the talk and emotion and energy going into secession are very much a crystallized version of the frustration that the public and citizens have been feeling for a long, long time. As this city has grown bigger and bigger, it’s become more and more difficult to feel that there is any sense of community. I want to see the frustration addressed in a way that solves the problems, and whether that’s breaking the city up into smaller units or finding other ways, I’m open to putting my energy into finding the best answer.

Q. You were named the head of the Public Safety Committee two years ago. What have you learned from your position there?

A. I think I’ve become chair of the Public Safety Committee at a very interesting time. One of the things I learned is how important it is that the Police Commission and the Public Safety Committee and the council work together and be kind of a loosely formed, flexible team, or else it creates confusion both for the department and the public.

Q. Some people have said that the job of chief of police is made difficult because he has to answer to the Police Commission, the mayor, the Public Safety Committee and the council.

A. I think that’s a very accurate statement. That’s why we need to work together to try to reduce that. That’s a potential problem for any and all chiefs of the LAPD. But it takes very strong leadership on the part of the department as the law enforcement experts in this city to make their case and to lead the policymakers and the decision-makers to follow their lead. Absent that, you have non-law enforcement experts with good intentions trying to make sure that the best decisions are made. The frustration for me in the last six months has been that the commission and the Public Safety Committee are leading the department rather than the department leading us. It is not the way it should be. I’d want the department to be the voice for having those needs filled. And I don’t hear it. Not in an effective way.

Q. Where’s that voice supposed to come from?

A. It should come from the management of the department.

Q. Let’s talk about Mayor Riordan. Last year, he sent out mailers to some of your constituents criticizing you for not supporting his police funding plan. He’s reportedly described you as his No. 1 enemy. Have you and he patched things up?

A. I don’t find it productive to look backward except to learn from the past. What’s important to me is that the mayor and I have lots of reasons to work together. This is an arena where it’s part of my responsibility to the people who elected me to try my best to get things done. But you learn things about people and you incorporate them into how you deal with those people in the future. I will never feel kindly toward certain things in the past. But that steel trapdoor in my mind is very effective in allowing me to focus on forward.

Q. You mentioned the time that several council members walked out and broke the quorum over the sewer service fee dispute. What does this say to the residents of Los Angeles?

A. It’s terrible. I think from the public’s view they should look at City Hall and say, what is the matter with those people? The mayor and the council don’t get along, the chief and the commission aren’t doing well, the council doesn’t get along within itself. Where’s the leadership?

This is not in our best interest that all of this infighting is going on, and I think basically on many of the issues the public doesn’t even care what the disagreement is, they just want us to get our act together, and they deserve to have us get our act together. Do I have the solution to make all of this conflict go away? Absolutely not.

Q. Because of term limits you won’t be allowed to seek another term after the next one. Have you thought about what’s beyond the City Council?

A. Everyone seems to think that once you run for elected office, of course it automatically means that you want this as your lifelong career. I came in with the clock ticking in my ear. And on the one hand you could think eight years is a long period of time, and on the other hand it is a very short period of time to try to get something accomplished in government. And that’s where my eye is right now. Somewhere along the way as I move through that second term it will be time to really start engaging in dealing with the fact that my job is over on June 30, 2001. My inclination, when I do allow myself to think about it, is to feel very strongly that I want to stay in the local area. I don’t see me going to Sacramento, and I don’t see me going to Washington, D.C., in terms of either appointed or elected office. I want to keep my energies here. I’m very, very involved in the city of Los Angeles.

Q. Mayor Laura Chick?

A. It’s been brought up to me. I remember taking a tour of the Getty House, the mayor’s official mansion, when Mayor Riordan had invited the council for a tour. I was convinced that as all of us walked through the Getty House, everyone was thinking, “Someday I maybe could be mayor.” So I think probably every elected official here in Los Angeles and those who face term limits have thought about it. I won’t deny that that thought has crossed my mind. But it’s not something that I’m making plans about.

Hugo Martin is a Times staff writer.