Working to Earn the Trust of Gates Pays Dividend : Wachs: Although the councilman does not share the chief’s political views, he has managed to form a close relationship with him.

At last, the long, hectic pressure-cooker of a week was done, giving Joel Wachs plenty of time to kill. His workday conservative suits were gone, replaced by a loud blue Hawaiian shirt and baggy pants, and he was off on his Saturday ritual, stalking the galleries of La Brea Avenue for one more addition to his burgeoning private art collection.

Yet there was still no escape from public matters Saturday for the Los Angeles City Council member who had helped broker the elastic and still-tentative arrangement expected to lead to the retirement of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

Even as Wachs drove to his favorite galleries along La Brea, the agreement he and Council President John Ferraro forged seemed as solid as mist. Despite Wachs’ insistence that Gates would retire not much later than February of next year, the chief raised the possibility Saturday that he might remain in his post until early 1993.

“We talked this over and I know what he wants,” insisted Wachs as he walked into a gallery filled with 1960s-era photographs of haggard motorcycle outlaws, beatific civil rights workers and bullish Southern sheriffs. Gates is “not looking to drag this on forever . . . he looks forward to retiring in an orderly fashion.”

That Wachs is able to speak with any authority about the inner thoughts of Daryl Gates testifies to the 52-year-old councilman’s apparent success in asserting himself as a council diplomat. While most of his colleagues have either lined up behind or against Gates or sat on the sidelines during Los Angeles’ police crisis, Wachs has taken advantage of his close relationship with Gates, a no-nonsense conservative who is, both in politics and sensibility, worlds apart from Wachs’ staunch support of liberal and gay rights causes.

“I could only do this with the trust of the chief,” said Wachs, who represents parts of the San Fernando Valley. “Fairness is really important to him and I think he realizes that when we have dealings, that’s what he’ll get from me. He appreciates that.”

As he went about his errands Saturday morning in his home base of Studio City, Wachs was stopped repeatedly by constituents who praised him for his role in the compromise. At a bagel shop, one supporter even insisted that Wachs give an insider’s narrative of Thursday’s lengthy negotiations. Smiling, Wachs begged off.

Even when he slipped into an art gallery to view a photography show, owner Jan Kessner was quick to remind him of the pressures he had left behind.

“Where are all the cameras?” she asked.

“They’ll be back soon enough,” Wachs sighed.

Over a lunch of french toast at a Santa Monica Boulevard cafe, Wachs explained that his ultimate goal during the complicated negotiations with Gates was to bring about the fundamental changes sought in the Christopher Commission report.

But to get to that point, he realized as he plowed through the commission report late Wednesday night, “We had to find an amenable way to persuade the chief to do what he himself wanted--to make a transition with honor and with order.”

The councilman was able to draw on a public relationship that has quietly blossomed over the years. Wachs said he has had his disagreements with Gates over everything from budget matters to the department’s reluctance to acknowledge its small cadre of gay and lesbian officers.

But he has tried to “keep things on a fair and human basis,” he said. He has been careful not to take “cheap shots” during public controversies, Wachs said. And when police officers have been killed in the line of duty, Wachs said, he is almost always among the mourners.

When the city’s Police Commission briefly removed Gates from his post April 4 in the wake of the beating of Rodney G. King, Wachs’ forceful criticism of the commission’s ruling proved to be a crucial turning point in his relations with the chief.

“There’s no question that he appreciated it,” Wachs said. “I didn’t do it to be nice. I did it because that’s how I felt. What the commission did was terribly wrong and, as a civil libertarian, I felt that due process is essential.”

The result, Wachs believes, was that when he pushed the notion of gay police officers openly recruiting at the Gay Pride parade in West Hollywood--an idea Gates had scotched in past years--the chief eventually agreed to it.

And when he and Ferraro called on Gates last Thursday to broach the idea of leaving office, Gates was willing to compromise--but only with councilmen he had grown to trust.

“You don’t get to first base,” Wachs said, “if the person you want to negotiate with thinks you’re the enemy.”