Quiet Force at City Hall Wades Into Charter Fray

Throughout his long career at City Hall, Keith B. Comrie has rarely been a candidate for most popular boss. Ernest, demanding, not given to glad-handing, the city administrative officer--Los Angeles’ top bureaucrat--has presided over tough employee contract negotiations and kept a close eye on the taxpayers’ purse strings.

Yet he has earned admiration from many quarters for his hard work, integrity, caution--and his determination to stay out of the political fray.

“My job is to build a consensus around the mayor and the City Council. I report to both, and, ultimately, to the citizens,” Comrie says in explaining why he tries to take a just-the-facts approach to analyzing policy initiatives amid often clashing political agendas. “Frequently, I have to be a mediator, and you don’t accomplish that by taking a position on one side or the other.”

So it was a real stunner to see Comrie last week publicly take on Mayor Richard Riordan and the elected commission attempting to write a new city charter.

In an interview with The Times, Comrie attacked several of the commission’s proposed new rules for governing the city, including giving the mayor alone the power to hire and fire department heads, prepare the city budget and negotiate labor contracts. He said these and other proposals would open the door to corruption by destroying the city’s system of checks and balances and said the mayor had undermined his already considerable authority and had held “possibly illegal” secret meetings to influence commission members.

Comrie, 58, said he had been planning to retire from his $193,223-a-year job but changed his mind so he can work against the proposed changes he views as a “threat to honest and good government.”

And when copies of the story in The Times began circulating through City Hall on Friday morning, many employees found themselves with a surprising new hero.

“A lot of folks were saying, ‘Go, Keith!’ ” said one council member’s aide, who, like several others interviewed for this article, asked not to be identified.

“I wish he hadn’t gotten quite so personal [in criticizing the mayor and his staff, which Comrie called “very low-level”], but I really think he spoke for a lot of people, especially general managers [department heads]. What he said reflects the views of a lot of people who are intimidated and scared to speak up,” the insider continued.

‘This Is Only Chapter 1’

The phones in Comrie’s 15th-floor offices kept ringing all day with congratulatory messages, he said. One of the supportive callers, Comrie said, was former police chief Daryl F. Gates, who had once publicly accused the CAO of being “a rubber stamp” for then-Mayor Tom Bradley.

“This is only Chapter 1; I’m far from done,” said Comrie, who planned to work over the weekend elaborating on his criticisms and offering alternative ways to rewrite what serves as the city’s constitution. He said he will release his work sometime this week.

While the mayor’s office was understandably critical of Comrie’s pronouncements, they were hailed as the courageous act of a dedicated civil servant by Comrie’s many admirers.

“Keith Comrie is as honest as they come, a real straight shooter,” said former City Atty. Burt Pines, now a partner in a prominent law firm and active in civic affairs. “He knows city government inside and out, and what he has to say is worth paying attention to.”

Harry L. Hufford, former longtime chief administrative officer for Los Angeles County, was Comrie’s boss for several years when Comrie worked for the county and has remained friends with him ever since.

“He was acting on a sincere belief based on an honest conviction that the commission is going down the wrong path,” Hufford said. “It’s unusual because it is more of a philosophical statement than his traditional facts-and-figures role.

“The traditional playing field for a CAO is to work within the system. Now he is stepping out and taking a policy position, one that I believe is coming from his convictions,” Hufford added. “And to his credit, he is doing it at the front end of the process. He’s made his position known early; he’s not trying to sandbag it at the end, and I think that also speaks to his integrity.”

The attention Comrie’s statements drew stood in marked contrast to a style that has been deliberately low profile throughout a public career that began in 1963 with a job in the city office he now heads. An only child raised in Los Angeles, Comrie was encouraged by his mother to become the first in his family to earn a college degree. He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from USC, then a master’s from USC’s School of Public Administration.

After a few years at the city, he moved up the hill to the county Hall of Administration, working first for then-CAO Hufford and later heading the Department of Public Social Services. He steered a welfare reform effort at the county that won praise from then-Gov. Ronald Reagan and marked one of the earliest efforts to help welfare mothers find work.

When he returned to the city in late 1979 at age 40, he was the youngest person ever to hold the city administrative officer position. Hired by Bradley and the City Council, Comrie has presided over the city budget, been the taxpayers’ chief labor negotiator, revamped the once-precarious police and fire pension system and kept the city’s bond ratings high throughout the seven-year recession that dogged much of the 1990s. He recently was a key negotiator on the multimillion-dollar deal that led to construction of a new sports arena south of downtown.

Won’t Take No For an Answer

The people who have worked most closely with Comrie invariably describe him as talented and driven, a demanding boss with a lot of pride in himself, his work and in his staff. They say he is honest to a fault.

“If Keith ever used a postage stamp that belonged to the county, he would insist on paying for it,” recalled Nadia Looper Wiggins, who worked for Comrie at the county and is now the spokeswoman for the city of Las Vegas. “It was challenging to work for him. He wouldn’t take no for an answer--we worked at a problem until we solved it. But he cared deeply about people and about the county and the city.

“I really think the world of him,” Wiggins added.

Comrie sometimes keeps his dry sense of humor under wraps, but he can be self-effacing--he refers to himself, because of his many hours at a desk, as a “shiny-ass bookkeeper” and a “bureaucrat.” But those close to him say he has been deeply offended by what he and some others at City Hall perceive to be disdain on the part of the private-sector-oriented mayor and his staff for those who have chosen careers as public servants.

Insiders say Comrie’s power slowly was eclipsed with the growth of the office of the chief legislative analyst, the council’s own policy agency, and the rise of its gregarious, politically savvy chief, Ron Deaton. Once Bradley left office in 1993 and Riordan brought in his own budget staff, the CAO’s office seemed to lose more influence.

But Comrie has kept plugging away.

He and his second wife, Sandra, live downtown in a Bunker Hill condo, close to Comrie’s office. He turned in his city car a year or so ago and now tools around town in a red 1983 Porsche 930. (The other family car is a 1985 Jaguar, and the Comries have mechanics in Los Angeles and in Palm Springs, where they own a vacation home, to keep the temperamental classics in running order.)

These days he watches his diet, works out two or three times a week and spends as much time as possible with his two daughters from his first marriage whenever they are home from college. It was on a Club Med vacation with his wife and daughters in July that he decided he would retire, Comrie said. He even typed up a news release--his first ever--for the announcement. But he changed his mind when he saw how things were going with charter reform.

“I think someone needs to speak up, and I’m in a good position to do it,” Comrie said. “I’m very concerned, and I feel I just can’t leave now.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Profile:

Keith B. Comrie

Los Angeles city administrative officer since December 1979

* Born: Oct. 3, 1939

* Residence: Downtown Los Angeles

* Education: Bachelor’s degree from USC School of Business

Master’s degree from USC School of Public Administration

* Career highlights:

As head of the county Department of Public Social Services, spearheaded a welfare reform program that brought a commendation from then-Gov. Ronald Reagan

As city administrative officer, has revamped the police and fire pension system, helped engineer construction of the Los Angeles Convention Center and the rebuilding of the Central Library, was a key negotiator for the Staples Center, a massive sports arena under construction south of downtown.

Received numerous awards, including ones from the American Society of Public Administration and from City and State magazine.

* Personal:

Married to Sandra McNutt Comrie, a principal at the Arthur Andersen accounting firm

Two daughters from a previous marriage, Shannon, a senior at Texas Christian University, and Colleen, a freshman at the University of Arizona

* Quote:

“Frequently, I have to be a mediator, and you don’t accomplish that by taking a position on one side or the other.”