Riordan Asks Commission Appointees to Work for Free : City Hall: If more than 200 part-time commissioners waive stipend, L.A. could save $60,000 to $120,000 a year. Five have agreed so far.

Multimillionaire-turned-mayor Richard Riordan, who is serving for $1 a year, has asked his more than 200 part-time commission appointees to go the extra mile toward helping the city out of its financial crisis by working for free.

Not that city commissioner could get rich off the city. They are paid $25 to $50 a meeting, up to a maximum of $250 a month.

“There’s something wrong when a commissioner makes 25 times more in a month than I make in a year,” Riordan said Friday.

So far, no one has refused the mayor’s request to sign a form waiving the stipend, according to the mayor’s office. Riordan asked his commissioners to forgo payment “if it does not cause personal hardship” but has not insisted on them serving for free as a condition of appointment.

A city budget analyst estimated Friday that if all the commissioners serve for free, the city could save $60,000 to $120,000 a year.

Among those agreeing to serve gratis were four new police commissioners and the expected president of the new Airport Commission. The five, the first Riordan appointees to come before the City Council, easily won confirmation Friday.

Commissioners were asked to sign a waiver saying: “In recognition of the financial crisis facing the city and my desire to contribute to its financial well being, I . . . hereby release any interest in payment for my services.” The form provides, however, that commissioners will be reimbursed for “normal expenses related to commission activities.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” said Marcia Volpert, a Riordan appointee to the Water and Power Commission who signed the waiver.

“No one can earn a living as a commissioner,” she said. “Whether I am paid or unpaid will not change the character of the counsel I give the city. I don’t think those dollars will make a difference for someone’s ability to serve or not serve.”

Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, who was confirmed Friday to the Police Commission, said: “When I agreed to go on the Police Commission, I was not aware that there was a stipend.”

Martha Brown Hicks, president of Skid Row Development Corp., has been appointed by Riordan to the Airport Commission. She said of the waiver: “It’s fine with me. I would have given it to my company anyway.”

As the waivers were being returned, the council Friday unanimously confirmed the appointment of four new commissioners to oversee reform of the Los Angeles Police Department and restore public safety to the city.

Besides Greenebaum, the new police commissioners are Art Mattox, the panel’s first openly gay appointee; Deirdre Hill, an African-American attorney and daughter of state Sen. Teresa Hughes (D-Inglewood), and Latino businessman Enrique Hernandez Jr. Riordan’s fifth appointee, San Fernando Valley businessman Herbert F. (Bert) Boeckmann, is expected to be confirmed by the council next week.

The vote came after the appointees reaffirmed their commitment not only to implementing police reforms but to expanding the diversity of the department--especially its top administration--to include more ethnic minorities, women and homosexuals. The new commission also will oversee the promised expansion of the 7,673-officer department. The new commissioners’ public expression of support for police reforms was important because of criticism of Riordan’s hiring of former police union President William C. Violante, an opponent of a voter-approved police reform measure, to serve as deputy mayor for public safety.

In the only criticism of the new mayor during Friday’s meeting, Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg said, “One woman on the (five-member) commission is not gender balance.”

The council also approved the appointment of Valley lawyer Ted Stein to the Airport Commission after he pledged to aggressively work to carry out Riordan’s pledge to squeeze as much money as possible out of the airport to pay for more police.