Heads of 2 Charter Panels to Resume Talks

After months without a meeting between leaders of Los Angeles’ two charter reform commissions, the chairmen of the panels have agreed to restart their talks.

Assuming that the elected charter commission votes next week to aim for the June ballot next year rather than the April ballot, the conference committee trying to draft a charter that both bodies could endorse will resume its discussions Nov. 19, said George Kieffer, chairman of the appointed commission.

The suspension of those meetings has been widely interpreted as a bleak sign for the prospects of a unified charter. But now, with the elected commission drawing closer to a complete set of recommendations, Kieffer and Erwin Chemerinsky, chairman of the elected group, believed that they could begin working again to iron out their differences.

The two commissions are far apart on a number of issues such as whether the city’s mayor should have the power to fire department heads without council approval.

On the other hand, the elected commission voted this week to have as its main charter recommendation the creation of a network of advisory neighborhood councils whose members would be selected in local caucus elections. That proposal could dovetail with the approach recommended by the appointed commission, so that the issue, once thought to be a possible deal-breaker between the two panels, now may be resolved more easily than once seemed possible.