Riordan Seeks City Charter Compromise

Faced with the possible collapse of his shaky majority in the drive to reform the Los Angeles City Charter, Mayor Richard Riordan on Friday urged two citizen panels to resume talks aimed at developing a compromise proposal.

“I am asking that the elected and appointed charter reform commissions resume discussions to see if real reform can be achieved through a unified charter proposal,” Riordan wrote in a letter to members of the city’s elected commission. “It is my genuine hope that further collaboration will result in a new city constitution which we can all support in the name of true reform.”

That letter marked an abrupt shift in Riordan’s position.

Only three days ago, he publicly and unequivocally urged the elected panel to reject a compromise package and stick with its own recipe for revamping the city’s aging and much-criticized governing document.

By a 9-6 vote, members of the elected panel agreed with the mayor and rejected a compromise forwarded to them by leaders of their own commission and its appointed counterpart.

Over the past two days, however, that majority began to dissipate. Commissioners Rob Glushon and Bill Weinberger, both of whom voted against the compromise package, urged Riordan to reconsider and warned him that they were prepared to reignite the campaign for a unified charter despite their reservations about the package as it stands.

When the elected commission meets Monday, Glushon will introduce a motion of reconsideration, the commissioner said Friday.

“I will be making this motion to reconsider for the purpose of going back and trying to reconcile some of the differences,” Glushon said. “I want to make one last attempt to iron out these differences before we give up.”

Although a number of issues divides the two commissions, chief among them are proposals regarding the creation of an independent commission to draw political boundaries and the power of the mayor to fire general managers.

Riordan has insisted that to be effective, the city’s next mayor needs the authority to fire general managers without the City Council’s intervention. Council members and others have objected, arguing that such authority, though common for most big-city mayors, would weaken the independence of city department heads.

However, in his letter Friday, Riordan for the first time offered to support a charter that did not specifically include such authority for the city’s mayor. Instead, he said he is prepared to back a charter without such a provision as long as voters are given the chance to consider it separately.

“I trust the voters of Los Angeles,” Riordan wrote. “Therefore, I am willing to have the issue of mayoral authority to terminate general managers as a separate ballot initiative for voters to decide--provided that the overall charter represents significant reform.”

Riordan and his top aides declined to specify what they would consider “significant reform,” but the concession on the general manager issue represents a major scaling back of their refusal to embrace any charter without that language.

There were reports, meanwhile, that Riordan and his allies had put inappropriate pressure on one commissioner, Richard Macias, during and after the key compromise vote this week.

Although he could not be reached for comment Friday, Macias has said his job with a law firm was threatened if he did not vote with Riordan and he has told confidants that Riordan’s chief of staff, Kelly Martin, suggested after Tuesday’s vote that Macias step down from the elected commission.

Other commissioners have reported similar tactics from the other side: Sources close to Commissioner Woody Fleming, who works on City Councilwoman Rita Walters’ staff, say she has made political and professional threats against him as part of her campaign to defeat Riordan’s version of charter reform. Fleming voted against the compromise that Walters wanted anyway.

The elected commission meets Monday night and will then consider motions to reopen negotiations on a compromise charter as well as proposals for how that negotiation should be structured.