Perez Reelected Police Commission President

The Los Angeles Police Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to reappoint President Edith Perez to a second term, making her the first commission president in a decade to succeed herself in the civilian oversight body’s top job.

Vice President T. Warren Jackson also was unanimously reelected.

Perez, who is admired for her tenacity but who has been criticized for exercising too little oversight since the board named Police Chief Bernard C. Parks to his job, at one point during Tuesday’s meeting interrupted the chief. Then, referring to the criticisms, Perez remarked: “I’m glad we got that oversight thing straight.”

Although Perez’s reelection to a one-year term did not come as a surprise, just a few months ago it did not seem locked up. Mayor Richard Riordan, who appointed Perez to the board, heard from advisors and colleagues that her performance was solid but unspectacular, and some City Hall officials speculated that she would not seek or win a second term. When she decided to run for the job, no other commissioners challenged her.

For her second term, Perez said, she would like to see the remaining Christopher Commission recommendations implemented--a mission that has caused substantial disagreement between reform advocates and some department insiders over the breadth and spirit of the reforms, which were adopted in the wake of the 1991 Rodney G. King beating.

Commission spokesman Ken Ferber dismissed suggestions that the relationship between Parks and the commission is overly cozy.

“Chief Parks is following in the footsteps of Chief (Daryl) Gates and (Willie L.) Williams, who were very controversial,” Ferber said. “This chief came in with a plan and an enormous respect for the [reform] process.”

Perez sounded a different theme, however, arguing that “just because the chief and the commission don’t have a lot of public dissension doesn’t mean there aren’t privatedisagreements.”