Rivals for Police Chief’s Job Pal Around in Los Angeles

There are 469 square miles in Los Angeles--and that still wasn’t enough room to prevent a couple of high-profile out-of-towners from bumping into each other this week like a pair of movie stars vying for the same award on Oscar night.

But these two traveled in rental cars, not limos.

John Timoney, one of three finalists for the job of Los Angeles police chief, walked into the New Otani hotel Tuesday morning and got the star treatment: A TV news crew popped from around a corner and started taping him checking into his $140-a-night room. (He balked at spending the city’s money on the $350-a-night rooms available at the downtown Marriott.)

Then the desk clerk answered the phone and told Timoney, the former commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department, “It’s for you.” It was hotel security asking if he wanted the TV crew thrown out.

After settling into his room, he rode an elevator down to the lobby and stepped out to see William Bratton, the former commissioner of the New York Police Department--and his rival for the LAPD job--being trailed by the same film crew.

Timoney ducked back into the elevator, and Bratton walked in behind him.

“Billy Boy,” Timoney said, chuckling, as the doors closed on the cameras.

Competitors this week and NYPD colleagues during the 1990s, Bratton and Timoney are, coincidentally, best friends.

The two chatted on the ride up to Timoney’s 16th-floor stop, at which point they decided, hey, a police chief finalist’s gotta eat, right?

The former officers, neither of whom carries a gun, went off to lunch together at the Azalea restaurant on the lobby level of the hotel. Somehow, they had shaken the camera crew. Or, more precisely, the camera crew had moved on to something else.

Both men insist that the contest for Los Angeles police chief--which has been whittled down to them and Oxnard Police Chief Art Lopez, a Los Angeles native who needs no introduction to the city--will not dampen their friendship.

“We’re always going to be the best of friends,” Bratton once told a reporter.

“The competition is no big deal for us,” Timoney has said.

They’ve been through plenty already.

Since they parted ways in New York, the two cops have stayed in touch and found ways to help each other: Timoney defended Bratton when New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani feuded with his former commissioner; Bratton recommended Timoney for the top policing job in Philadelphia.

On Tuesday, Bratton was first up. The former New York commissioner met with Mayor James K. Hahn and his entourage.

Bratton, a native Bostonian, told the group to consider his strong accent a warmup for what they were about to get: Timoney’s thick “Bronx brogue,” a New York and Irish mixture.

Later that afternoon, Timoney got in his rental car (nothing fancy) with his rental company map and motored across Wilshire Boulevard, through the fading, once-elegant stretches of Los Angeles, to Getty House, the grand mansion in Windsor Square that the mayor uses for ceremonial purposes.

For the balance of the day, Timoney was cloistered with Hahn, the mayor’s staff and City Council members, mostly in the small, book-lined library of Getty House. The mayor supplied chocolate cookies to tide them over.

A dinner of chicken and twice-baked potatoes was ordered in from Whole Foods Market and served on the long, polished table under a crystal chandelier in the formal dining room.

At the end of the evening, Timoney retired to his hotel room to finish rereading “Rizzo,” the biography of former Philadelphia police chief and mayor Frank Rizzo. He is writing an introduction to a new edition of the book.

But once again Wednesday morning, Timoney’s and Bratton’s paths crossed at breakfast at 7:30 a.m. in the same hotel restaurant.

Timoney, who likes to get up before dawn, was gearing down from a 90-minute workout in the hotel gym, while Bratton was gearing up for his day of interviews with the mayor, et al.

The mayor said Wednesday afternoon that he believes all three candidates are experienced and have come to the interviews--Lopez had his round of meetings Monday--well-prepared.

The question, Hahn said, ultimately will come down to who can make the city safer.

Hahn intends to mull that over for at least several more days.

Already, however, Timoney and Bratton have gotten a handle on the little things--Bratton has mastered the freeways and pronunciation of “La Cienega.”

Timoney, an avid rower, has already investigated the Los Angeles Rowing Club, which rows out of Marina del Rey.

Bratton’s interviews stretched through Wednesday. As with Timoney, he and Hahn hunkered down in the library. While they talked, city crews trimmed trees nearby.

By early afternoon, Bratton was getting his meal with the mayor. Bratton’s was ordered from California Chicken Cafe, and, like Timoney’s, eaten with Hahn in the formal dining room. When they were done, Hahn walked Bratton to his rental car, a silver Ford Taurus, and saw him off.

The mayor later told reporters that he might talk to his three finalists again before making up his mind, but that he was not planning to meet with them in person until after deciding on his nominee for chief.

By then, his pal Timoney had shed a suit for jeans, polo shirt, and favorite Teva sandals to eat salmon enchiladas in East L.A. at La Serenata de Garibaldi--the kind of hip Mexican restaurant you only know about if you’re cool and live in Los Angeles.