Mayor, Ex-Police Commissioners Assail Council

As Los Angeles city government grappled Friday with the sudden departure of two leading members of the Police Commission, Mayor Richard Riordan joined with his departing commissioners in criticizing a controversial City Council vote and pledged to submit names of new nominees within the next three weeks.

The resignations of commission President Enrique Hernandez Jr. and Commissioner Gary Greenebaum took City Hall by surprise Friday morning, and their parting comments--a searing criticism of last week’s council vote overturning the commission reprimand of Police Chief Willie L. Williams--triggered reaction at all levels of the city government.

In an interview and written statement, Riordan praised the dedication of his commissioners, who he said had “acted courageously and in good faith.” The two men’s commission colleagues agreed, and joined with the mayor and some Los Angeles police officers in accusing the City Council of jeopardizing LAPD reform efforts by overturning the commission without reviewing the facts of the case.

Suddenly on the defensive, council members praised the two resigning commissioners as capable and talented community volunteers. But they stood by their decision to overturn the commission’s reprimand, saying their goal was to put a quick end to the controversy that they said was beginning to hurt the city.

Riordan said in an interview with The Times that he had reluctantly accepted the resignations and that the council vote had raised doubts about whether the Police Commission can effectively exercise its mandate to hold the police chief and department accountable to them.

“If you want to have the city well-run,” Riordan said, “I think we should follow the blueprint of the Christopher Commission and allow the citizen commissions to set policy for the departments.”

“Hopefully,” he added, “that message will get out now.”

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In a parting interview, Greenebaum and Hernandez accused the council of recklessly exercising its power in overturning the reprimand, a characterization that Riordan stopped short of endorsing. But the mayor, who previously had resisted any criticism of the council for its action, said Friday that his commissioners had raised “important questions about the viability of independent civilian oversight of the Police Department and the prospects for true reform absent accountability.”

Sources have said that the commission, which had previously expressed private concerns about the chief’s management, unanimously voted to reprimand Williams after concluding that he lied to the board about accepting free accommodations in Las Vegas. Williams has denied any wrongdoing and blamed the controversy on a misunderstanding between him and the board.

Riordan upheld that reprimand, but Williams appealed to the council, which overturned it without reviewing the commission file.

On Friday, Williams declined to wade into the heart of the controversy, but used a written statement to defend the LAPD’s reform efforts, which he said “continue unabated.”

Although Williams has privately told associates that he saw Greenebaum and Hernandez as adversaries, he thanked them in a statement for their contributions to the Police Department. Williams--whose statement did not refer to the reprimand or the council action--also said he looked forward to working with the remainder of the commission and other government leaders to continue building the LAPD.

Bringing the commission back to full force, however, may prove to be difficult, as the mayor conceded.

“It’s a tough challenge,” he said. “Whoever takes this will realize that it’s a tough job that will expose them to a lot of criticism and second-guessing, but they will do it for the good of the city.”

Nevertheless, Riordan pledged to nominate two new commissioners within the next three weeks. Sources close to the mayor said he had begun to compile a list of candidates but had not yet settled on nominees.

The nominations will be forwarded to the City Council. Members at first had prided themselves on what they perceived as their deft handling of the Williams controversy. But on Friday, they found themselves forced to defend their action against complaints that they were impeding oversight of the Police Department.

“It’s with great dismay and sadness that I learned of their resignations because I regard them as two people of great integrity, great talent and great dedication,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, a member of the Public Safety Committee. She added, however, that she did not believe the council had ever undermined the commission.

“We made a very difficult decision,” she said. “It wasn’t at all intended--certainly not by me and I don’t believe by the council--to disregard the hard work by the commission. Our decision was to stop focusing on this and to put our time and energy into important business.”

Council President John Ferraro said he, too, was disappointed by the resignations of Hernandez and Greenebaum but added that the council’s decision was intended to resolve the dispute and avoid a lawsuit by Williams against the city.

“It could have dragged on for months and everybody could have suffered and my main concern is the city; the city would have suffered,” he said. “So I thought we did a magnificent piece of strategy.”

Finding comparable replacements will be difficult, Ferraro said, but he hoped Riordan would try to fill the slots quickly so that the controversy can be put to rest. Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg also praised the resigning commissioners but said perhaps it was time for them to leave.

“If they don’t feel like they can live with the fact that the council has the ultimate authority, they ought to resign,” she said. “I’m just sorry they feel that way.”

Although most council members praised the commissioners for their service, a few were more critical. Councilman Nate Holden, a staunch supporter of Williams, said the commissioners should never have investigated the chief in the first place unless they were prepared to allow an investigation of their own use of complimentary hotel rooms.

“If we are going to have an investigation,” he said, “we are going to have to investigate the commission as well.”

Holden also suggested that it was Riordan who had urged the commissioners to step down, an allegation that they and the mayor dismissed as absurd. In fact, Riordan said, he had urged both men to stay on and had accepted their resignations only after they insisted they needed to leave.

For some council members, the charge that their actions had undermined the prospects for reform of the LAPD was the most stinging suggestion--one that many rejected.

“We have reinforced the old American principle of separation of powers,” said Councilman Marvin Braude, who heads the council’s Public Safety Committee. “The notion that reform is dead is preposterous. The mayor and the council are dedicated to reform.”

The remaining commission members said they, too, are dedicated to bringing reform and oversight of the department, but fear that the City Council may have seriously set back that effort.

Bert Boeckmann, a member of the commission, echoed his colleagues’ fears that the council had effectively undermined the commission’s authority, and said it was too soon to tell whether the commission could continue to operate effectively.

“I guess we’ll find out in short order,” he said.

Art Mattox, another commissioner, said he was optimistic that the panel could regain its authority, but he vehemently denounced the council’s override of the reprimand.

“I was beyond frustrated,” the normally low-key commissioner said of the council vote. “I was flabbergasted, furious. . . . It was the ultimate in cowardice and selfishness.”

Mattox said he shared the resigning commissioners’ dismay at the council action and praised them for their courage in the face of a council vote that “made a mockery” of their convictions. However, he said, he elected to stay on the commission in order to see through a number of reforms that are under way.

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Many police officers saw the commission resignation as further evidence of what many already have concluded: that the LAPD is in a near-permanent state of turmoil and that prospects for substantive reform of the department have been dealt a serious blow.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing rank-and-file police officers, urged the commissioners to reconsider. And union President Cliff Ruff said he was dismayed by their departures, which he said only redoubled the need for Williams to release files related to the reprimand in order to put the controversy to rest.

Among officers, many echoed that sentiment. And their reactions were laced with bitter resignation.

“The cops are saying to me: What do we do now?” said Rick Barrera, a 26-year LAPD veteran and member of the Latin American Peace Officers’ Assn. “Why in the hell did I come on board this Police Department?”