Attorney to Direct City Charter Panel

The elected City Charter commission announced Wednesday that it has chosen municipal law specialist C. Edward Dilkes as its executive director.

He was the panel’s second choice for the post. Last week, after interviewing six finalists in a closed meeting, the commission decided to offer the position to H. Eric Schockman, a political scientist who has written about the charter and who last month became USC’s associate dean for student affairs, sources said.

Schockman later took himself out of the running, saying he realized that he did not have enough time to work as a USC administrator and as director of the commission, which was elected two months ago to place a rewritten City Charter on a 1999 ballot.

“At one point I thought I could do both,” he said Wednesday. “But my duties at the university take first priority.”

How the commission will pay Dilkes’ approximately $100,000 annual salary remains unclear. The panel was elected without a clear source of funds and is literally penniless. Meeting in borrowed offices and auditoriums, operating without so much as a telephone, it remains the victim of an intensifying struggle between Mayor Richard Riordan and the City Council. One councilwoman said she could not agree to provide public funds for the commission Riordan helped spawn because she is “tired of cleaning up” after the mayor.

At a news conference on the steps of City Hall, Dilkes said: “Charter reform is an essential first step in the long-term reorganization of Los Angeles to make it a more livable place.”

Calling himself a “nerd,” the attorney, 55, displayed his annotated copy of the 700-page charter and said rewriting it would be “the thrill of my lifetime.” He said it should be a much simpler document, setting broad policy guidelines with minimal detail. He hopes details on items such as pensions and work rules can be relocated to ordinances or departmental rule books.

Dilkes’ law firm, Richards, Watson & Gershon, provides city attorney services for 31 Southern California cities. He is currently city attorney for Bradbury.

Commission member Erwin Chemerinsky, a USC constitutional law professor who was selected Tuesday as the panel’s chairman, said that details of Dilkes’ contract remain to be worked out.

Riordan financed the $2-million campaign that created the commission as an alternative to a panel that was appointed and funded by the City Council. That panel must win council approval of its proposals before they can be put before voters, and Riordan fears that the council would never assent to eroding any of its powers.

The mayor agreed to help the elected panel get started by raising $300,000 from private sources, but so far his supporters have tried to donate only $30,000 from a nonprofit corporation called the Fund for Better Los Angeles Government.

The council has held up the donations, demanding that the names of individual donors be revealed. So far, Riordan’s forces have been unwilling to make those disclosures. Meanwhile, requests for taxpayer funding have been stalled in the council’s Rules Committee.

On Tuesday, committee member Jackie Goldberg proposed allocating $350,000 “so that they can get started” outfitting an office and hiring a staff. But she said she was not willing to allocate additional funds for public hearings and expert advisors because the elected commission could share hearings and advisors with the appointed panel, which is already months into its job.

Rules Committee member Ruth Galanter opposed Goldberg’s proposal, saying: “I’m really tired of cleaning up after Dick Riordan, and I’m not going to support this.”

Goldberg said she agreed but wanted to offer some money because elected commissioners ran for public office “in good faith.”

Rules Committee Chairman John Ferraro seconded Goldberg’s proposal but postponed a vote.

Elected commission members bristled at Goldberg’s offer, suggesting that it came with strings attached. Reporting on his experience before the committee, lawyer Rob Glushon told the elected panel Tuesday night that the council is attempting to oversee “an independent commission whose mission in life might conflict with what the City Council wants to see.”

Chemerinsky assigned commissioners to explore alternatives, including declaring independence by accepting private money without first getting council approval.

City law requires that city agencies obtain council approval for private gifts of $5,000 or more. Chemerinsky’s idea is that the panel may not be bound by that because it was created under a provision of state, rather than city, law.