Hahn’s Ousters of His Commission Appointees Criticized

When Mayor James K. Hahn ousted Alan Llorens from the Airport Commission last week, the public relations executive became at least the fourth appointee in the last two years pushed out by the mayor.

Hahn has removed commissioners who took issue with his approach to fundraising reform, development and the San Fernando Valley secession attempt.

Llorens said he had no idea why he was kicked off. But he had recently criticized airport officials for how they handled a contract for Hahn’s controversial LAX modernization plan.

That has prompted several officials to wonder whether the city’s appointed commissioners will become more hesitant to speak openly and act independently of the mayor.

“Commissioners should be free to express how they feel,” Councilman Tony Cardenas said. “I would hope that more commissioners would not get the message that they can’t be independent.”

Hahn said he wasn’t playing politics with the commissions, adding that he decided to remove Llorens simply because he wanted “new thinking” on the panel charged with reviewing his $9-billion plan for Los Angeles International Airport.

“I want people to be independent thinkers,” the mayor said, but added, “These aren’t sinecures for life. I have the ability to remove people at will as mayor, and I exercise that right. They serve at the pleasure of the mayor.”

When the city’s commissions were created a century ago by progressive reformers, they were intended to bring an independent, nonpartisan approach to city government. But local government experts say that notion is now all but a historical relic.

“There has always been the expectation that commissions should be independent bodies that bring new perspective to city decisions ... but I don’t think they ever developed that pure civic role,” said Raphael Sonenshein, a political scientist at Cal State Fullerton who is writing a book about municipal reform. “They have in practice been much more like extensions of the mayor’s office.”

Earlier this year, Hahn removed San Fernando Valley leader Bonny Herman from the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California shortly after she testified about campaign finance reform before the city Ethics Commission.

Herman spoke in favor of a council proposal to ban fundraising by members of city boards and commissions. At the time, Hahn opposed the proposal, although he later changed his position and signed the ban after the council unanimously approved it.

In October, the mayor removed cultural heritage Commissioner Mike Cornwell after Cornwell publicly attacked a plan to expand a historic Westwood cemetery; the mayor’s office has supported the development.

And in 2002, San Fernando Valley attorney Robert Scott complained that the mayor removed him from the Planning Commission in retaliation for Scott’s support of the Valley secession movement.

Hahn said last week that his decisions were unrelated to the commissioners’ political views.

“A lot of people would like to serve as commissioners, and I’d like to give them the opportunity to do that,” the mayor said.

When Richard Riordan was mayor, he did not hesitate to remove commissioners who did not adhere to his wishes.

Three years ago, he dismissed Police Commission President Gerald L. Chalef amid a public dispute between the two over the direction and pace of reform in the Police Department.

And in 2000, Riordan dumped Encino lawyer and developer Ted Stein from the Harbor Commission after Stein decided to back Hahn for mayor over Riordan’s candidate, developer Steve Soboroff. In protest, the City Council refused to confirm the man Riordan tapped to replace Stein.

After he was elected, Hahn made Stein president of the Airport Commission. Stein served until last month, when he resigned amid controversy over his fundraising for the mayor.

Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who was a liaison to several commissions in Mayor Tom Bradley’s administration, said mayors had always expected loyalty from commissioners. But she said that seemed to be even more true under Hahn.

“Before, a commissioner would speak out, make a decision and then step down if it was out of step with the mayor,” Greuel said, noting that Llorens was removed before he even got to vote on the mayor’s LAX plan.

Cardenas, whose council committee will review Hahn’s nominees to replace Llorens and to fill two other Airport Commission seats, said he was in no rush to confirm the appointments.

In the face of Hahn’s authority over the approximately 350 people who sit on Los Angeles’ 54 boards and commissions, reviewing appointments is virtually the only means the City Council has of influencing the panels’ makeup.

The council used to have the power to block dismissals. But when the City Charter was reformed in 1999, the mayor -- at Riordan’s urging -- was given a free hand to dismiss all commissioners except those on the ethics and police panels.

“It was thought that this was a way of increasing accountability in city government ... and if the voters didn’t like it, they could vote the mayor out,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a USC law professor and one of the architects of charter reform. “Now, there is really no limit on the mayor’s power to remove a commissioner for any reason he chooses.”