Davis Aide Departs Quickly

Advocates of government-supported shelters for battered women and children Friday applauded the surprise resignation of Frank Grimes as director of Gov. Gray Davis’ office of Criminal Justice Planning.

Grimes, a Los Angeles police officer for 32 years and a charter member of Davis’ administration, quit the $112,000 position without advance notice effective Friday, saying he was returning to his home state of Massachusetts to work on an undisclosed “project that is very close to my heart.”

He did not amplify further, but said in a statement that he had hoped this “special opportunity” would come along someday and “now that it has, I feel that I must act immediately or it will pass me by.”

Davis accepted the resignation “with regret.” Members of the governor’s staff insisted that Grimes, 63, was not pressured to resign, though barriers he erected to the release of government funds for women’s shelters last year have drawn heavy criticism from influential female legislators and shelter operators.

In October, Davis publicly scolded Grimes for denying grants to shelters on what the governor called the “most trivial of technicalities.” These included rejecting typewritten applications because they were not spaced correctly or had taken too many pages to describe their programs. Grimes indicated he wanted to insert more competition into the funding process.

As a result, the Legislature had to pass a $2-million emergency bailout to keep the shelters program from collapsing. The foul-up angered and embarrassed Davis, who is running for a second term.

“I have to admit I’m pleased about his resignation,” said Sheila Halfon, director of the Haven House in Pasadena, the nation’s oldest women’s shelter. Her application was among those turned down.

Halfon said Grimes’ office returned about $2 million in unspent money to the federal government last year, asserting the shelters didn’t want or need the money. “It was never offered to us,” she said.

Grimes, who had served as Davis’ liaison to law enforcement when Davis was lieutenant governor, had been asked to appear at a special fact-finding hearing of two Senate committees on Tuesday. He was expected to defend his agency’s process for distributing federal money, but is not now expected to testify.

“His [resignation] timing was perfect. Maybe he saw the handwriting on the wall,” said Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), chairwoman of the Select Committee on Government Oversight.

Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), a strong advocate of women’s shelters, said Davis’ chief of staff, Lynn Schenk, had summoned Grimes to her office two weeks ago to discuss the grants policy.

“He was very, very evasive and very uncomfortable,” said Kuehl, who attended the session. “Lynn told him, ‘This has to be fixed. The governor is very upset.’ She was very strong with him.”

Kuehl said Grimes had behaved more as an “adversary” than an evenhanded administrator of funds. “The shelters and the sexual assault response teams were more and more hamstrung in their ability to provide services,” she said.

Davis spokesman Byron Tucker denied the notion that Grimes was pressured to resign.

Davis named N. Allen Sawyer, the agency’s chief deputy director, as Grimes’ interim successor.