How the Deal Was Struck on Gates' Retirement Date : LAPD: City leaders wrestled with the issue for 10 days. In the end, the chief realized he had been boxed in.

By GLENN F. BUNTING

July 24, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Over a turbulent 10-day period, some of the most prominent political, business and labor leaders in Los Angeles wrestled with a difficult mission: how to persuade Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to commit to a retirement date.

Closed-door meetings were held between July 12 and July 21, from the mayor’s wood-paneled office in City Hall to the elegant 51st-floor dining room at Arco’s downtown headquarters.

While Mayor Tom Bradley and his staff pressed on with a not-so-subtle campaign to oust Gates, two of the chief’s supporters on the City Council struggled to preserve their crumbling retirement deal with Gates by asking critics to stop hounding him.

In the end, according to interviews with participants in the delicate negotiations, Gates realized that he had been boxed in by the Christopher Commission findings, leaving him little room to maneuver.

“It was a tough step,” said one Gates supporter, recalling the effort to get the chief to set a date. “You realize at some point that there is no way he can announce his retirement and leave with dignity. You go through 100 scenarios in your mind how he can leave with dignity and none of them come out right.”

The Christopher Commission report two weeks ago concluded that the Los Angeles Police Department has tacitly condoned racism and brutality by rogue officers and it urged Gates to step down.

The embattled chief finally capitulated last weekend when he decided on a retirement date of April, 1992, despite his personal reluctance to do so.

“There’s a little lame duck in me because I had to set a date,” Gates said Monday, reflecting on his long-awaited decision. “I didn’t want to do that.”

Just who finally coaxed Gates to the door, in the long run, probably will not amount to more than a sidelight to the uproar over the March 3 police beating of motorist Rodney G. King. But in the world of city politics, it is certain to be a hotly contested question as well as grist for the publicity mills of campaign consultants.

One thing is certain, though: Nearly everyone involved was willing to accept credit.

Council President John Ferraro was widely heralded for engineering and then pulling off the deal.

“The real hero in this is Ferraro,” said lawyer Richard Riordan, a Bradley supporter and Gates confidant who was intimately involved in discussions. “He just kept at it in a very low-key and non-threatening way. He convinced Gates that he was his friend and his total ally. He was very persuasive.”

And Bradley was left gloating that his longtime adversary had finally surrendered the job he had held for 13 years.

“Since the mayor launched his effort in March, he ultimately has been successful,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. “His beginning and middle game was very strong, but the end game was played out by others.”

Key players in the saga included Atlantic Richfield Co. Chairman Lodwrick Cook, Councilman Joel Wachs, Bradley chief of staff Mark Fabiani, Gates attorney Jay Grodin, labor leader William Robertson and retired Assistant Police Chief Jesse A. Brewer.

Gates could not be reached Tuesday. But he said this week that it was the recommendations of the Christopher Commission--with three members handpicked by the chief--that persuaded him it was time to relent.

The two figures who stood to lose the most were Ferraro and Wachs, who each had their credibility questioned after they jointly announced on July 12 that Gates had agreed to retire, perhaps by the end of the year. As part of the deal, the council would put on a special-election ballot the controversial Christopher Commission recommendation that the chief of police serve a maximum of two five-year terms.

But the deal appeared shaky from the start. Neither council member got anything in writing from Gates; instead they took him at his word. And Gates denied in press interviews that he would retire anytime soon.

“People were wondering if I was smoking something when I made that announcement,” Ferraro said this week.

However, both Ferraro and Wachs said they never wavered in their firm belief that Gates would honor his original commitment to them.

“He is a man of his word,” said Wachs. “When he said he wanted an orderly process, I believed him.”

The April, 1992, retirement date was first suggested last week in a City Hall meeting between Ferraro, Riordan and Gates, recalled sources familiar with the talks. Later, Gates would consider April 1. But Wachs urged the chief to settle for March 31, the sources said. He was concerned that skeptics would make light of an April Fool’s Day retirement date.

With Gates contemplating an announcement, Ferraro set out to pave the way by giving the chief “some running room,” Ferraro said. “The pressure continues when you have people sniping at you all the time. That is no fun.”

Ferraro said he appealed to the mayor to stop acting “hostile” toward Gates and urged council members not to criticize the chief. He said he called Urban League President John Mack to ask that prominent critics in the black community “lower the rhetoric.”

Last Friday, Ferraro’s pleas for quiet were threatened when Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) notified council leaders that she intended to lambaste Gates at a council meeting. But when she arrived at the council chambers shortly after the start of the meeting, Waters found the doors locked. The council had sped through the day’s agenda and adjourned uncharacteristically early.

Ferraro said it was “a coincidence” that Waters was unable to publicly voice her outrage.

Waters held a different view. “They shut down on me,” she said.

Ferraro was unsuccessful in getting the mayor’s office to join his peacemaking efforts. Knowledgeable City Hall sources said that Bradley and his aides conducted “business as usual” last week in his ongoing efforts to oust the chief.

Ferraro also found that his proposal for a special election received little support in council chambers. The deal was seen by many city politicians as a ploy to save Gates’ job by defeating the proposed two-term limit.

“That was clearly the chief’s strategy on this,” said one City Hall source. “He selected an option which attempted to force an early special election, when the turnout would be very low, when he had a chance of winning, when the hue and cry over the Christopher Commission recommendations would have died down and when he could stand up in December and say, ‘Hey, people want me back. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve been vindicated.’ ”

Such a deal was unacceptable to Bradley and several council members.

After it became evident that Ferraro did not have the votes for a special election, he and Riordan paid a visit to the mayor early last week. According to sources familiar with the meeting, the mayor said he would not support a special election unless it was tied to “a fixed, firm retirement date” by Gates.

During the meeting, it also was intimated to the mayor that if he made Police Commission appointments that were acceptable to Gates then the chief would be prepared to go ahead with a date, the sources said.

The meeting set off a flurry of activity last week: First, Bradley announced that he had nominated to the Police Commission retired Assistant Chief Brewer, the highest-ranking black in the history of the LAPD. Both Bradley and Brewer said that Gates must agree to step down for the good of the city.

“The chief had to feel that (Brewer) . . . would have his eyes glued to the chief’s performance, that there would be numerous opportunities for the commission to take him on over the next many months and that he would be under a lot of pressure and a lot of scrutiny,” said one City Hall source.

At the same time, Gates saw his support sinking all around him. Prominent business organizations began endorsing the Christopher Commission report, including the recommendation that Gates retire.

Late last week Gates had a private luncheon with Cook in the 51st-floor offices atop the Arco building. Cook declined to discuss the one-on-one lunch, which ran more than an hour and involved a range of topics that included a suggestion that Gates should consider retirement, City Hall sources said.

Last Friday morning, labor leader Robertson called an extraordinary 7:30 a.m. meeting with five council members--Yaroslavsky, Michael Woo, Ruth Galanter, Mark Ridley-Thomas and Rita Walters--to discuss Gates.

“I wanted to see if there were some council people (who would) support the Christopher Commission recommendations,” said Robertson, who earlier called on Gates to resign. He also sought “a signal down the line to the Police Commission that they would not be sandbagged by the council” if they made a move on Gates.

Gates turned his attention later that day to drafting a letter announcing his retirement. An initial draft did not include any timetable, said sources familiar with the document.

Later that day, Gates decided on his own to insert April, 1992, in the letter. “He realized that, because of this continuing barrage of questions and speculation, it would be better to set a date in the interest of the city and the Police Department,” said Jay Grodin, the chief’s attorney.

Said Ferraro: “I think it was time. We probably all felt there was a time to make a change and move on to greener pastures. I’m sure there will be greener pastures for Daryl.”

Choosing the New Chief

Daryl F. Gates’ announced retirement becomes final only when a formal application to the Board of Pension Commissioners is approved. Meanwhile, the process of selecting a new chief, estimated to take six or seven months, is getting under way. The first step may be public hearings to ask people what qualities they want in a chief. Next will be distribution of a brochure describing the job to candidates. Here is the way the process works:

APPLICANTS: Candidates for the job, which pays from $124,988 to $187,482 a year, will be asked to answer four or five questions by mail, with typewritten answers no longer than a page or two for each question.

FIRST CUT: A review committee--usually five people appointed by the Civil Service Commission--will study the responses and winnow the list of candidates to 12 or 15.

FINALISTS: Under the current City Charter, the Civil Service Commission will appoint a separate board of community leaders to interview candidates and rank the top six.

APPOINTMENT: The Police Commission, which is appointed by the mayor, will be free to name any of the six as the new chief, except that any candidate from outside the LAPD would have to have the highest ranking in order to be named.

CHRISTOPHER COMMISSION CHANGES: If new charter provisions recommended by the Christopher Commission are in place, the Police Commission, or a board named by it, will do its own interviews and come up with its own list of six. The commission will then submit its top three choices to the mayor, who, if not satisfied, can ask for the next three on the commission’s list. The mayor will appoint the chief, subject to confirmation by the City Council. There would be no advantage to candidates from within the LAPD.