Another Day, Another Mayor

Eric Perrodin, the elected Compton mayor until a court ruling last month triggered civic chaos, was officially returned to office Thursday after the state Supreme Court declined to hear his opponent’s appeal to stop it.

Smiling broadly as about 50 supporters hovered outside the Compton city clerk’s office, Perrodin was sworn in for the second time since the contested June election.

“Deja vu, huh?” said a Perrodin friend, hugging him.

“I’m feeling pretty good right now,” said Perrodin, a deputy district attorney who narrowly defeated two-time incumbent Omar Bradley in a stunning upset eight months ago.

“I would ask the supporters of Mr. Bradley to put aside their differences,” Perrodin added, as about 20 Bradley boosters stood outside the office with signs in Spanish: “We don’t want Perrodin for mayor,” and “Latinos support Omar Bradley.”

Decorum was maintained through the brief ceremony, but only barely.

Perrodin attorney Fred Woocher said he got word about 2:30 p.m. that the Supreme Court, in a one-sentence notice, chose not to hear Bradley’s emergency request for a review.

“They might have heard it and ruled on it one way or the other,” Woocher said. “But in this case, they declined even to hear it. So the result is that the appellate order [went into] effect as scheduled at 4 p.m.”

Bradley could not be reached, and his attorney, Bradley W. Hertz, did not return telephone messages.

Hertz had expressed hope that the high court would recognize “what is at stake” and agree to review a Tuesday appellate court ruling that evicted Bradley from office.

Long before the past month’s volley of legal rulings seesawed Bradley and Perrodin in and out of office, this city of 93,000 had a history of political turbulence.

After the June election that was narrowly won by Perrodin, Bradley filed suit, charging that his defeat was the result of election fraud by the city of Compton, Perrodin and City Clerk Charles Davis.

On Feb. 8, the trial judge ruled that Davis broke the law by placing Perrodin’s name first on the ballot and that it afforded him enough of a statistical advantage to decide the race. The judge ordered Bradley and Melanie Andrews, who lost the election for an open City Council seat to Leslie Irving, sworn into office Feb. 11.

They had just convened for their second City Council meeting Tuesday afternoon when word arrived that the appellate court had just granted Perrodin’s request to return him to office while his appeal of the lower court ruling was considered.

Attorneys for Perrodin and Bradley agree that the appeals process will last a minimum of four to six months but probably longer.

Until then, Perrodin is back in the seat of power.

And so at 4:02 p.m., he resumed the mayoralty surrounded by friends and fans. Before a bank of news cameras, the cheers of Perrodin fans prompted the Bradley camp to begin chanting, “Bradley! Bradley!”

Davis--who had sworn Bradley back into office a few weeks before--asked the celebrants and protesters to go outside. The two camps repaired to the City Hall steps and taunted each other for almost an hour.

When Perrodin finally exited City Hall, he was met with shouts of “Eric! Eric!”

Perrodin said one of his first goals in office is to address the City Council’s controversial 3-1 vote Tuesday night to pay Bradley $43,000 in back wages and his attorney’s claim for $840,000.

City Treasurer Douglas Sanders, who attended the swearing-in along with several city employees, said the city staff is looking forward to focusing on their work again without the storm cloud of politics.

“It was pretty tense for the last 18 days,” said Sanders, who was elected in June. “But, you know, as the treasurer, I’m concerned about us paying two city managers and two assistant city managers, and this thing they approved the other night.

“That check was not going to be signed,” he explained. “If you looked at the judge’s order, it looked like Mr. Bradley never was in office, so why would you pay someone back pay if they were never in office?

“And No. 2, the attorney fees, $840,000, would be a gift of public funds, and that is illegal. So I don’t think that was very prudent for the council to vote for.... I don’t think it was right.”

He said he had received 75 calls from residents indignant about the vote to pay Bradley’s legal fees.