Funding for Elected Charter Panel in Limbo

What a difference an election makes.

Six months ago, the Los Angeles City Council tried to kill Mayor Richard Riordan’s efforts to create an elected citizens panel that would rewrite the 72-year-old city charter.

Most council members feared that the elected panel would be controlled by Riordan cronies who would want to increase the mayor’s authority at the council’s expense.

In fact, they were so fearful that they created a competing reform panel of 21 appointed members to study the charter.

But now that the elected charter panel has been sworn in and is scheduled to begin work Monday, the council is considering tapping city coffers to fund the panel’s work.

Why the change of heart?

Most council members say they feel obligated to fund the work of the panel because it was overwhelmingly supported by voters.

But the reality may be that the council no longer feels threatened by the reform commission because voters rejected most of Riordan’s handpicked candidates for it.

Instead, voters elected a 15-member panel whose majority was endorsed by powerful city labor unions, many of which have close ties to the council.

Now, the nasty back and forth sniping between the City Council and Riordan over the charter reform effort has been replaced by an atmosphere of cooperation.

“One message we need to send loud and clear is that we do support what they do,” Councilman Richard Alarcon said of the elected panel.

At least one council member finds the change in attitude confusing.

“I’m just trying to decide if it’s Alice-in-Wonderland time,” said Councilwoman Rita Walters, who opposed Riordan’s elected panel and criticized a proposal to use city funding to bankroll the panel.

The charter reform effort was launched last summer in response to threats of a San Fernando Valley secession. Calling secession an extreme solution, Riordan and the City Council both argued that a better alternative would be to rewrite the 680-page charter, which acts as a blueprint for the city bureaucracy.

Both sides agreed that the charter is outdated and creates government gridlock. But Riordan and the council disagreed on how to overhaul the document.

The mayor led and largely funded a petition drive to put a measure on the ballot that would allow voters to create and elect a citizens’ panel with the power to put a new charter directly on the ballot.

But the council worried that Riordan--a millionaire businessman--would use his considerable personal wealth to bankroll the campaign of his own slate of candidates for the panel.

The council, therefore, voted to create and fund a 21-member appointed reform panel that can only recommend reform measures to the council, which can then put the ideas on the ballot.

The council has already agreed to spend $1.4 million to pay for staff and other expenses of that panel through June 1998. The panel officially began working in November.

But as the council moved ahead with its own reform panel, it tried to kill off Riordan’s reform effort. The council instructed city lawyers to challenge Riordan’s charter measure in court, saying the petition drive was legally flawed. Council President John Ferraro also wrote a ballot argument against Riordan’s charter measure.

Throughout the reform effort, Riordan vowed to secure about $2 million to bankroll the panel’s work for the next 18 months--including at least $300,000 from his own pocket.

But after most of Riordan’s handpicked candidates were soundly defeated in the April primaries and June runoffs, the mayor appeared to lose interest in the reform effort.

Although Riordan said he has yet to secure the $2 million needed to fund the elected panel’s work, the mayor and his supporters say he will not back away from his promise to find the money.

“Believe me, there is money out there,” said David Fleming, a Studio City attorney who teamed up with Riordan to help create the election panel. “There is a lot of interest from a lot of nonprofits who want to make sure this city is restructured.”

Despite such assurances, several council members now argue that the city should fund Riordan’s elected panel as well as the appointed panel so that the elected panel will not feel obligated to Riordan or his private contributors.

“You owe the people of this city the right to have an independent commission funded by them, the taxpayers,” said Councilman Nate Holden, an ardent Riordan critic who introduced a motion to fund the elected panel.

Most council members agreed that the city should at the very least contribute to the elected panel. But this week they could not agree on how much or when to provide the money.

After a lengthy debate, the council voted to hold off any decision until the elected panel meets, creates a budget and decides whether it wants to accept any city money.

“We are having a very interesting debate about what they ought to do,” said Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg. “I think we should ask them what they want to do.”

But it appears that even among the elected panel, there is no consensus on the matter.

One elected charter commissioner said privately: “I don’t know which is worse, taking private money or taking public money.”

Paula Boland, one of the few elected panel members who was endorsed by Riordan, said she is adamantly opposed to accepting city money because Riordan campaigned on a promise that the panel would be privately funded.

“The people are tired of voting for things just to have them changed,” she said.

Boland, a former state assemblywoman from the Valley, added that accepting city funding would give the council the impression that they can control the panel.

“When you give the dollars, you feel in some manner you have some say in what goes on,” she said.

But, she said she would not feel compromised by accepting money from Riordan or private contributors.

“If private donors were to give money, I wouldn’t pay much attention to who it was,” she said.

Rob Glushon, another elected charter commissioner, said he has spoken to several other commissioners who feel uneasy about relying solely on funding from Riordan and private contributors.

On the other hand, Nick Pacheco, an elected charter commissioner who was endorsed by Councilman Mike Hernandez, said he would “have no problem” accepting money from the City Council.

But he said the entire matter is complicated by the fact that Riordan promised that the panel would not draw upon taxpayer money.

“By taking city money, it almost sounds like a breach of contract,” he said.