Panel to Decide on 2nd Term for Parks

With Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks already indicating that he wants a second five-year term, city officials are preparing to activate a little-used process designed to evaluate whether the chief should stay or go.

The months-long reappointment procedure will draw players from several branches of municipal government, and will involve scrutiny of the department and its leader. Police commissioners and their staff have the job of evaluating Parks’ performance. Members of the City Council have the authority to review and reject the commission’s judgment.

But a person who has no formal role in the process is the one who has commented on it most extensively: Mayor James K. Hahn.

“As I told the chief before, I’m looking for real progress on implementing the [federal court] consent decree, making the city safer, improving community policing, improving morale and recruitment,” Hahn told reporters in late December. “What I’m looking for is what his plan is for the next five years.”

Parks told a group of supporters last month that he wants to keep his job. He held a news conference last week to review his own performance. He is expected to announce his bid for another term in February. Hahn has said he will make his view on the chief public early this year.

In an interview last week, Hahn acknowledged that the City Charter does not give him a formal voice in the process. Still, he said, the decision about who should lead the Police Department is so significant that he has an obligation to express his opinion.

“I think at some point the public does look to the mayor as the chief executive officer of the city government, [who] obviously would have a position on something as important as the chief of police,” Hahn said. “But the right time for that is when the process is underway.”

Hahn’s lack of a direct role highlights a long-standing tension in Los Angeles city government, which is run by a mayor but which also includes a number of commissions charged with overseeing various departments. Those commission members are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council, but once in place do not always heed the wishes of those who put them there.

Rick Caruso, president of the Police Commission, said Hahn has every right to weigh in on the matter, but stressed that the mayor’s opinion will not be the final word.

Independent of Mayor Hahn

“I think we have to take it into account, but I don’t think this commission is prepared to be told what to do,” Caruso said. “We need to exercise our authority independently and do what’s best for the city, and that’s going to be the standard.”

The chief’s reappointment is unique in Los Angeles government in part because no other city department is run by a manager with a term of office. All others serve at the pleasure of the mayor. The police chief, by charter, may serve a maximum of two five-year terms.

Under that charter, Parks must announce by mid-February if he wants another term. At that point, the five-member, civilian Police Commission has three months to respond to his request. The commission is expected to solicit community input and set up a panel to examine how the LAPD has done under Parks.

Armed with those views, the commission then votes up or down on Parks’ future.

The City Council can overturn the police panel by a two-thirds vote, meaning that it would take 10 of the council’s 15 members to overrule the commission. But because of conflicting passages in the charter, it is unclear whether the matter would end there or if the decision would bounce back to the commission for additional action. The city attorney’s office is studying the issue.

Hahn does not have any formal role in the process unless the Police Commission fails to act on Parks’ request. In that case, he would have until mid-June to make a decision about whether to keep the chief.

Joe Gunn, executive director of the commission, said he does not expect that to happen.

“It’s not his decision to make,” Gunn said. “I’m surprised that the mayor’s office keeps saying that. We certainly want to get over this rubber-stamp issue. It is the commission that makes the decision.”

Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook said that although he expects the mayor’s preference to be an important factor for the commission, Hahn supports the panel making an independent decision.

This is only the second exercise of the city’s reappointment process, which grew out of the 1991 Christopher Commission recommendations to reform the LAPD. Prior to that, the city’s police chief had no term of office and could serve indefinitely.

In 1997, then-Chief Willie Williams asked for a second term and was rejected by the Police Commission. Williams’ supporters accused commissioners of doing then-Mayor Richard Riordan’s bidding, though Riordan himself said little about the reappointment. In fact, Riordan was criticized in some quarters for not taking a more public role in the debate over Williams, which culminated in the chief’s ouster just weeks before Riordan was reelected.

As with that reappointment campaign, the current one is complicated by politics. Hahn was elected with strong support from African Americans, some of whom are highly supportive of Parks, who is black. But Hahn also was helped by the endorsement of the city’s police union, which has accused the chief of being heavy-handed with discipline and fostering bad morale within the LAPD.

“The difficulty of all this is knowing when the mayor should weigh in,” said Cal State Fullerton professor Rafael Sonenshein, an expert on the City Charter and the LAPD. “The timing of everything is crucial. The decision could easily look like it’s a purely political decision.”

Hahn, who has been careful to remain publicly neutral on the matter, has said that political considerations will not influence his decision.

The mayor was the only candidate during last year’s mayoral election who did not say that the fallout from the Rampart corruption scandal and sagging department morale made him inclined to replace Parks.

But since taking office, Hahn has pushed for several policies that Parks opposes, such as a flexible work schedule for police officers and a civilian panel to review disciplinary violations.

Hahn could defuse some of the political tension surrounding Parks’ reappointment by not getting ahead of the commission, Sonenshein said.

“This is a real perilous decision, and it’s best to make it on the merits, and the only vehicle available is the Police Commission,” he said. “In an ideal world, the mayor would not express his opinion unless the Police Commission has undertaken a great part of the process.”

‘Appropriate’ for Mayor to Speak Out

Others, however, argue that as the elected official who selects the police commissioners, Hahn has a responsibility to voice his opinion about the chief.

“I think it’s very appropriate that he speaks out about it,” said George Kieffer, a Hahn advisor who headed one of the panels that helped rewrite the City Charter. “Since he appoints the commission, the public will hold him accountable for the choice.”

If the commission elects not to reappoint Parks, Hahn’s role becomes much clearer in the next step of the process. In that case, the commission would select three candidates for the chief’s job and send those names to the mayor. Hahn then would have the final say about who takes over the helm of the LAPD.