Councilman Art Snyder Quits in Surprise Move : Mentions Personal and Political Problems in Announcing He Will Step Down July 1

Los Angeles City Councilman Arthur K. Snyder, beset by years of personal, legal and political troubles, announced on Wednesday that he is quitting the council July 1, depriving the city’s governing body of an articulate Police Department defender, a staunch friend of city employee unions and a strong rent-control opponent.

His departure also will clear the way for the possible election of the city’s first Latino council member in more than two decades.

Snyder once was viewed as the council’s bright young man, but his image was tarnished by crashes in a city-owned car, one of which led to a hung jury in a drunk-driving trial. There were also a continuing child custody battle and a $14,000 fine by the Fair Political Practices Commission for admitted conflict of interest violations, including failure to disclose about $142,000 in outside income.

Having just survived a second recall election, Snyder finds himself battling an accusation that four or five years ago he molested his 9-year-old daughter--the object of a custody battle between him and a former wife. After a closed hearing in Dependency Court, a judge last week found sufficient evidence to support the allegation, which was made first by the former wife and later by the county Department of Public Social Services.

‘Fabric of Tension’

Asked if that case is a reason for his decision, Snyder said: “All of these things, the historical past, the present, are part of a fabric of tension and stress that is something that comes with the territory. And if you are going to . . . want to hold the territory, you have to settle down and realize there is going to be one thing after another.�

When asked about the accusation at a news conference earlier in the day, Snyder said: “I can’t discuss any part of the case, but I am confident that the truth will be known, and when it is, it will be what is best for me.�

His surprising decision, after almost 18 years in office, makes it possible for a Latino to succeed him in the 14th District, which includes the city’s heavily Latino Eastside.

Latino opponents of Snyder have been trying to unseat him for years, most recently in last summer’s recall attempt. But the red-haired, red-faced Snyder, of Irish and German descent, always prevailed with big votes in Anglo Eagle Rock and with surprisingly strong support from Eastside Latino voters, who seemed to like his scrappy, blue-collar political style and enjoyed the swimming pools, libraries and other municipal facilities he had built in the district.

He said the recall campaign, which he won handily, took its toll. He blamed the bitter campaign for a miscarriage suffered by his wife, Delia, 34.

“As a result of the stress, we lost it and now she is pregnant again,� Snyder said in an interview. “The doctor says she has to do something, that she can’t keep up the level of stress and expect to keep the next child. And we sat down and talked about it and talked about where our lives are going and what responsibilities does one have to himself and his family and to his unborn children, and we just decided it was time for a career change.�

Snyder said he will practice law full time.

City Council President Pat Russell said the council cannot act to fill the vacancy until Snyder actually quits the seat. “This doesn’t have any force of law,� she said of his announcement. Russell said she favors calling a special election to replace Snyder, rather than having the council pick a successor.

Snyder’s departure will have a major effect on the council.

It could make the body even more liberal. Although officially nonpartisan, the council is dominated by Democrats. Snyder, a Republican turned independent, reflected his early days as a conservative spokesman in his uncompromising defense of the Police Department’s intelligence activities. In speech after speech, and through parliamentary maneuvering, he defended the department’s spying on lawful, liberal political activities.

Political indications suggest that his successor will be a Democrat, probably a Latino, coming from a more liberal political tradition.

It has always been hard to classify Snyder’s politics except to say that he has, in the view of friends, been pragmatically effective and, in the view of his foes, cynically opportunistic.

While fighting liberals on police issues, he battled council fiscal conservatives and Mayor Tom Bradley on behalf of city employee unions, pushing for good-sized settlements during the city’s fiscal hard times. As chairman of the council’s Personnel and Labor Relations Committee, he was in a position to help the unions--and to receive campaign contributions from them.

Snyder was also a spokesmen for development and used his parliamentary and oratorical skill against the city’s rent-control law. Snyder’s tactics caused rent-control backers to revamp and weaken the law before it got on the books.

Once the council’s biggest fund-raiser and a seeming rising star who in the 1970s considered running for mayor, county supervisor or even congressman, Snyder saw his political fortunes begin to shift in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In 1978 and 1979 he and Michele Noval, his second wife, went through a messy and public divorce and custody battle over their daughter, then 4. Noval charged that Snyder beat her and he countered that she beat him. A settlement awarded custody to Noval, with generous visitation rights granted to Snyder.

Later, he was removed as chairman of the council’s powerful Planning and Environmental Committee after complaints that he used the committee to boost his political fund-raising. In 1980, he was removed from the South Coast Regional Coastal Commission after similar allegations.

One of several accidents in a city-owned car led to a drunk-driving trial that ended in a hung jury in 1980. And, in a major controversy that placed another crimp in his once-unparalleled fund-raising, he was fined $14,000 by the Fair Political Practices Commission for admitted conflict-of-interest violations, including failing to publicly disclose about $142,000 in outside income.

Snyder’s decision to delay his departure will permit him to have a say in the election of a successor, to raise money to pay off a recall election campaign debt he estimated at between $70,000 and $100,000 and to oversee completion of several projects in his district.

Times staff writer Julia Fortier contributed to this story.