CALIFORNIA COMMENTARY : Charter Meant to Rein In, Not Encourage, a Meddling Council : The framers wanted a strong police board, one with power to punish chiefs who condoned brutality or corruption.

None would have been more surprised by Superior Court Judge Ronald Sohigian’s decision last week to uphold the City Council’s reinstatement of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates than the 1925 Board of Freeholders, who drafted the Los Angeles City Charter.

In overruling the Board of Police Commissioners’ attempt to place the chief on inactive duty, the judge held that, unlike the federal government’s three independent branches, the Charter “makes the city’s government unitary.” Thus the City Council’s control of litigation “supervenes” the board’s administrative powers to discipline the chief.

Based on the historical record, however, these are erroneous interpretations of the City Fathers’ intent.

The John Randolph Haynes Collection at UCLA represents a unique window into the Charter writers’ governing purposes. This collection houses a rich archive on the 1925 Charter--the minutes of the Board of Freeholders, successive drafts, the board’s correspondence and newspaper accounts--as well as the voluminous history of pre-1925 charter revisions. Haynes, vice president of the Freeholders Board, was a chief architect of today’s Charter.

The Haynes collection demonstrates that the City Fathers wanted a strong police board with ample powers to discipline police chiefs who condoned brutality or corruption. The framers also wanted a Police Commission insulated from political meddling by the City Council.

The story of reform begins with the weaknesses of the 1889 Charter, Los Angeles’ first home-rule government, which had divided administrative responsibilities between the mayor and council. Both branches had independent appointment powers. The mayor appointed the water and building superintendents. The city’s commissioners--including the police board--served at the pleasure of the City Council. The Police Commission, in turn, appointed the police chief. This Los Angeles began with divided--not unitary--government and with the police department under councilmanic--not mayoral--control.

Between 1889 and 1924 the City Council--more than the mayor--proved to be the true bete noire of Los Angeles’ progressives. Under the thumb of corrupt party bosses and powerful interest groups, council members frequently meddled in Police Department policy and personnel decisions.

In disgust, reformers amended the City Charter numerous times between 1902 and 1924 to prevent council abuses of the police. City voters supported the amendments, strengthening the executive branch’s control of the police--through the mayor, Police Commission and Civil Service Commission--at the expense of the City Council. The mayor--not the City Council--now appointed the police board, subject to council approval.

The reformers also worried about corruption and malpractice at the highest echelons of the department. They had good cause for concern. Former Police Chief Charles Sebastian had turned the department into a formidable political machine that catapulted him into the mayor’s office. A corrupt chief, Sebastian became a corrupt mayor and was forced to resign. The reformers also worried about brutal chiefs. A henchman for the anti-union business Establishment, Police Chief Louis Oaks violently suppressed a labor strike in San Pedro in 1923-1924, boasting, “We’ve got plenty of rock piles here.”

The 1925 Charter codified and extended the shift from legislative to executive authority over the city’s departments. Claiming the work to be of “paramount importance,” City Attorney Jess E. Stephens and his deputy attended the Freeholders Board meetings and actively assisted its 15 members in writing the new Charter.

The aims of the Charter are best told in the very words of the Freeholders in a statement to the city attorney: “A mayor and council form of government as distinguished from the city manager form or the Commission form. . . . “The new Charter will increase the executive power in the office of the mayor, and will limit the power of the council more strictly to legislative matters.”

City Fathers rejected unitary models of governance in favor of a more powerful executive branch within the city’s traditional mayor-council system.

The new Charter also made lay commissioners--appointed by the mayor and subject to council approval--the real supervisors of the city’s departments. The boards were given the power to appoint and remove department heads, to set overall policy and to direct agency operations. This was particularly true for the Police, Harbor, and Water and Power departments.

Strong and independent boards were Haynes’ chief contribution to the Charter. “Haynes’ instrument,” as the Times called the Charter, through strengthened board oversight over city departments, such as the police, touched a popular chord. The Charter was approved by 87% of the city’s voters.

This is the record of early charter reform in Los Angeles. Judge Sohigian’s ruling (that the 1925 Charter gives the City Council “more than legislative powers; its powers are also administrative and even quasi-executive”) has little basis in the framers intent or the historical record. Nor can the judge’s theory that Los Angeles municipal powers are unitary be historically supported. In both 1889 and 1925, the Freeholders and city voters chose divided--not unitary--government.

Charter amendments have strengthened the executive branch’s personnel authority, not the City Council’s. In particular, department heads like Gates have been given greater job security through civil-service protection. Their removal is governed by the Civil Service Commission and its procedures.

But none of the later charter amendments have created new personnel powers for the City Council. The amendments, however, have redrawn the delicate balance of power within the executive branch between the mayor, the governing boards, departmental heads and the Civil Service Commission.

The Charter framers wanted a strong police commission with ample powers to discipline police chiefs. They also wanted a board insulated from councilmanic political interference. Judge Sohigian’s ruling, if it is upheld, undermines and defeats the City Fathers’ intent.