Charter Draws Many Objections From Council

Leaders of Los Angeles’ appointed charter reform commission ran into a surprisingly critical reaction Thursday as they pitched their work to the very people who appointed most of them--the members of the City Council.

One council member after another rose to voice objections to elements in the proposed charter: Conservative Hal Bernson complained about what he believed were the selection procedures for neighborhood council members; liberal Jackie Goldberg presented a host of complaints, largely based on her concern that the commission’s draft would reduce public access to certain city actions.

“I see some dangers,” Goldberg said pointedly.

One after another, council members thanked the commission for its work, then proceeded to criticize it. They also displayed uneven knowledge, both of the new charter and the one it would replace. Some council members had read the drafts carefully and compared them to the existing document; others seemed not to know where the two differed.

Buffeted by the questions, appointed commission Chairman George Kieffer strove to avoid appearing defensive but spent most of the session explaining provisions and, in some cases, gently reminding council members that they were misreading the document.

In response to a series of questions from Goldberg, Kieffer noted that the provisions she was worried about were part of the existing charter, not the revisions prepared over the past two years.

“Who knew?” Goldberg remarked.

On the other hand, her suggestions about public notification--she wanted to know, for instance, whether a mayor using newly granted powers to issue executive orders would have to publicize those orders--highlighted an area in which Kieffer and commission staff agree that they have not fully considered their actions. Kieffer agreed to forward those concerns to the drafting committee that has been rushing to finish work on the document.

Other criticism came from Councilwoman Rita Walters, one of several officials to raise questions about the way the new charter would restructure the city administrative office. That office provides significant help to council members, particularly as they consider the mayor’s budget, and the new charter would redefine some of its functions under the new heading of the office of administrative and research services. (Up until this week, that office was called the office of research and administrative services, but the acronym ORAS worried some commissioners, so they flipped the name to the more palatable OARS.)

Walters, Councilwoman Laura Chick and others complained that the new office might be less useful to them. Kieffer responded by saying the commission fought to retain the office’s budget analysis functions and to preserve its unusual dual-reporting relationship to the mayor and council.

The reaction from the lawmakers suggested significant unhappiness with the draft, but the council’s ability to do much about that remains seriously constrained. If the council makes major amendments, it risks driving the elected commission to back out of the unified charter and press ahead with its own version, which it can place directly on the ballot without council approval.

If that happens, most observers believe that the elected commission would have major advantages, including the money and political backing of Mayor Richard Riordan.

The result is considerable pressure on the council to leave the proposed charter alone, but that will test a body more inclined to dabble in every aspect of city government than to leave it alone.

Meanwhile, other concerns about the draft charter continue to crop up with just three weeks until the final decisions must be made about whether to put it on the ballot.

The latest flurry came Thursday, this time from city Controller Rick Tuttle. In reading the draft, he discovered that one provision removes from the controller’s office the authority to survey the work of the city’s so-called proprietary departments--Airport, Water and Power, and Harbor. Though Tuttle said the commissions voted to leave that power with the controller, the draft removes it.

“I have to ask myself: Do I need to withdraw my support for the unified charter because I no longer know what duties will remain in my office after all the ‘language corrections’ are made?” Tuttle wrote.

Although focused on a different subject, that complaint parallels ones made by Riordan and a few other officials who say the draft charter has improperly characterized some of the decisions that it supposedly adopted. Kieffer and his elected commission counterpart, Erwin Chemerinsky, are racing to try to accommodate those complaints in time for the elected commission to approve a final draft next week.