Council Retains Fired Head of Police Panel

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday agreed to hire former Police Commission President Gerald L. Chaleff as a consultant on police reform issues.

Voting 11 to 1, council members said they needed to retain Chaleff, who was fired from the commission by Mayor Richard Riordan last week, to help select the monitor who will oversee implementation of the city’s federal consent decree.

Chaleff said this week that he would not appeal his firing to the council but would accept the consulting job if asked. The lawmakers have yet to determine how much to pay Chaleff.

Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowki introduced the motion requesting that Chaleff continue the work he began on the four-member city team that negotiated the consent decree with federal officials in the wake of the Rampart corruption scandal. “All of the members of that negotiating team, working specifically on implementation measures, were critical, are critical,” she said.

After a lengthy debate that included a number of jabs at Riordan, Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas told his colleagues that “continuity had become fundamentally important” to overhauling the LAPD.

“Instability becomes the enemy of our reform efforts,” he said. “It is much larger than Gerry Chaleff. It is about the people of the city of Los Angeles deserving the best possible service.”

Before firing Chaleff from the city’s volunteer civilian Police Commission, Riordan said there is a need for new leadership.

Chaleff said Wednesday that he was “gratified” that the council was keeping him on as a consultant.

“I look forward to contributing to selecting the monitor and ensuring the consent decree is implemented,” he said.

Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. cast the only vote against Chaleff’s appointment. He tried to convince his colleagues to back out of the consent decree, but council members gave little consideration to Svornich’s argument. Even several of those who voted to oppose the consent decree in the past voiced support for Chaleff on Wednesday.

“I have always had great respect for [Chaleff],” said Councilman Hal Bernson. “I sometimes wonder if the right person was fired, but we don’t know that.”

Councilwoman Laura Chick suggested that Chaleff be asked to volunteer his time, but her colleague Ruth Galanter disagreed.

“He spent 30 months of his life getting no pay at all” serving on the Police Commission, Galanter said. “If we ask him to continue after the treatment he received, it would be appropriate to compensate him.”

Meanwhile, the head counsel of the Police Commission’s Rampart Independent Review Panel sent a letter to city officials urging them to keep police reform efforts on track.

“Mayor Riordan has recently identified officer morale, retention and community policing as priorities that needed to be addressed by the Police Commission and the department,” wrote Richard Drooyan. But he added: “It would be a shame to lose the momentum and support for the reform . . . by focusing exclusively on the issues identified by the mayor.”