A Question of Clout at City Hall : Politics: Mayor’s troubles over replacing CRA commissioner reveal conflicts even with council allies.

When Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan wanted to move Dan Garcia, one of his most trusted commissioners, from one high-profile policy-setting board to another, the last thing he expected was troubles over a replacement.

After all, attorney Mee Hae Lee, the mayor’s choice to succeed Garcia on the Community Redevelopment Agency board, has considerable staff experience at City Hall and at the CRA.

But what Riordan didn’t count on was the long-festering unhappiness because no one from south of the Santa Monica Freeway is on the agency’s appointed governing board. Lee’s Eastside base--she lives in Glassell Park--only added to the turmoil as the agency increasingly turns its attention to the southern reaches of the city.

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But perhaps an even bigger factor in the outcry over Lee’s appointment is that it feeds a continuing power struggle between the City Council, which the City Charter gives broad authority, and the businessman-turned-politician Riordan, whose get-it-done style makes him reluctant to consult with key council members before making appointments or other proposals that need council concurrence to succeed.

Recent council conflicts with Riordan over several appointees’ views on affirmative action prompted Councilwoman Ruth Galanter to invite Riordan to a special meeting to explain how he picks commissioners, a meeting that the mayor’s office said he is willing to attend.

Both factors had a role in so angering Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr.--often a Riordan ally--that he has kept Lee’s nomination bottled up in the key committee he heads, Housing and Community Redevelopment. The committee must act on the nomination before it can be forwarded to the full council.

Lee’s close working relationship with Garcia, whom she reports to in her current job in the real estate and public affairs section at Warner Bros., was expected to lend continuity to a controversial, financially pressed agency trying to reinvent itself.

“Mee Lee’s experience at the CRA, on council staff and in community affairs, will help the CRA chart its course for years to come,” Riordan said in a news release announcing her nomination Sept. 22.

As the CRA began shifting its focus from building skyscrapers Downtown to helping communities hard hit by the 1992 riots or the 1994 earthquake, it has been launching an increasing proportion of its projects south of the Santa Monica Freeway. Ten of 24 existing projects are south of the freeway, while five of the seven proposals expected to come to the City Council for approval within the next few months are in this area.

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The fact that no one from this vast part of the city is a member of the agency’s board had irritated council members and community leaders in those neighborhoods long before Riordan took office in mid-1993.

“This community never has had a voice on the CRA commission, and that has long been a concern here,” said Leon Love, a real estate agent and head of the Watts Chamber of Commerce. “We’ve worked with [the agency], but there needs to be someone at the board level . . . who is part of the community and can be sensitive to it.”

Svorinich, whose Watts-to-San Pedro district has several CRA projects, shares Love’s views and he has been trying to secure assurances from the mayor’s office that it will consider nominees from south of the freeway for the next CRA board vacancy.

“They asked me for suggestions, and I’ve given them some, but that’s as far as it’s gone,” Svorinich said, adding that he has not yet scheduled a committee hearing on Lee’s appointment.

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Although Riordan’s office said it has made such assurances and is seeking Svorinich’s guidance for the next vacancy, the councilman said the mayor could have saved himself a lot of trouble and benefited the city by talking with him first.

“I would have shared the concerns about not having a representative from that part of the city, and I would have appreciated the courtesy” of being contacted before Riordan had made up his mind to appoint Lee, Svorinich said.

Nor would he have automatically opposed an appointee from outside the unrepresented area, Svorinich added, noting that he voted recently to approve the reappointment of Harbor Commissioner Carol Rowen, who lives in the San Fernando Valley, because she had shown “understanding and concern” for the views of his Harbor-area constituents.

Robin Kramer, Riordan’s chief of staff, downplayed the dust-up over Lee, saying she believes Svorinich’s concerns have been alleviated and predicting that Lee will win council confirmation.

“She is a terrifically qualified person. . . . When the councilman and others get to know her, their concerns will be addressed,” Kramer said. Moreover, most of the more than 200 commission appointments have engendered no controversy, Kramer added. “Overall, these commissions represent a diversity of views, talents, geography, ethnicity--diversity of the best sort.”

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The incident does not speak well of Riordan’s grasp of political reality, according to two academics well versed in city politics.

Not verifying the appointment with the council member who is key to its success was “a basic miscalculation on somebody’s part,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the Center for Politics and Economics at the Claremont Graduate School.

“I’m astounded,” Jeffe said. “Svorinich has been an ally of the mayor, he has direct oversight of the redevelopment committee, and he has concerns in this area. [The mayor and his advisers] think they are entitled to make their own commission appointments--and they are right--but they are ignoring or misinterpreting political reality” by not bringing others into the loop. “Not antagonizing the committee chair is just ‘Politics 101,’ ” Jeffe added.

Raphael Sonenshein, a Cal State Fullerton professor who has written extensively on Los Angeles politics, sees the CRA appointment as part of a pattern of unnecessary conflicts with council members who have been or could be needed allies in helping him accomplish his ambitious agenda.

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He cited the recent firing of Benjamin Bycel, founding executive director of the Ethics Commission. The firing, on a 3-1 vote led by the commission’s new, Riordan-picked president, prompted Councilman Mike Feuer to propose diluting the mayor’s appointment power.

Noting that Feuer is a new council member whom many expect to become a council leader and who appears to be open to working with the mayor, Sonenshein sees the incident as a troubling sign for the Administration.

“What is significant is that we’re seeing these kinds of things from council members who are not Riordan’s political foes. These are the people he needs to ensure the success of his programs,” Sonenshein said.