Traveling chief - Bratton jet-setter in months on the job

www.dailynews.com209541216373,00.html Article Last Updated: Sunday, March 02, 2003 - 7:11:44 PM PST By Mariel Garza Staff Writer

When historians write this chapter in Los Angeles history, William Bratton may be remembered as the the city's most travelin' police chief.

In the few months since he took over as head of the Los Angeles Police Department, Bratton has jetted around the country to lobby in the nation's capital, spend weekends in New York City with his wife and attend conferences to schmooze with other police chiefs. Six weeks after he took the post, Bratton left the country entirely for a private speaking engagement to security officials in Israel.

Bratton said he has no intention ever to be a stay-at-home chief, even after he and his wife, Court TV broadcaster Rikki Klieman, complete their cross-country move this summer.

"I will continue to travel a lot," Bratton said after returning from a week of travel to Phoenix for one of three conferences held each year by the Major Cities Chiefs' Association and to Florida for a speaking engagement for The Quest Education Foundation.

Bratton said both private speaking engagements -- in Israel and in Florida -- were arranged before he accepted the LAPD job. Mayor James Hahn's spokesman confirmed those trips were approved by the mayor.

"It's the nature of the job," said Bratton, calling it essential to meet regularly with other law enforcement movers and shakers -- to keep up with what they're doing -- and to get face-to-face time with federal officials to keep the city's place in the queue for homeland security money.

So far, Bratton has taken six of his 20 annual vacation days, according to his scheduler. He has spent at least three work weeks of his four months out of town, and he plans to hop a plane again in coming weeks for conferences in Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C.

Bratton said he intends to put together a meeting with other police chiefs in Chicago this month to discuss antiterrorism issues.

Bratton's bosses say they aren't bothered.

"We are in constant communication," Hahn said. "He has done so much in a short time. His attention is very much on what's going on in Los Angeles."

"As long as the department is doing as good as it can, that's all that matters," said City Council President Alex Padilla, who joined Hahn in interviewing Bratton for the job.

Los Angeles taxpayers finance travel for the chief or for his people on behalf of the city. According to the department's fiscal support staff, the LAPD has $607,000 in this year's budget for travel. Most of that -- about $575,000 -- is spent for officers to travel for extraditions and investigations. The rest can go for conference and meeting travel for anyone in the department. In addition, for the last few years, the department has allocated $30,000 per year from its asset-forfeiture funds especially for the chief's travel.

There was a time when city officials caught a lot of flak for traveling out of town -- even for business. Just a decade ago, in 1993, then-Mayor Tom Bradley's travels with city officials to Europe, Japan and other locales were sharply criticized by the City Council, which later voted to put limits on officials' travels.

Richard Katz, then an assemblyman, was one of the critics of the trips, saying the mayor ought to be close to home at a time of crisis -- as during the second trial of LAPD officers in the Rodney King case. After the first trial, the city had erupted in the 1992 riots.

Today, Katz said Bratton's case doesn't raise the same concerns.

For one thing, there was a sense at the time -- before he was termed-out of the Assembly -- that those city officials weren't looking out for the city's best interests in general, Katz said. Secondly, although the city is again in a time of crisis -- still reeling from a year as the nation's leader in murders and gang violence -- city officials' jobs include reaching beyond the city boundaries for help.

"Times have changed. The emphasis is on homeland security money out of Washington and the new (terrorism) threat," Katz said. "The job of chief has also changed. I think Bratton is well-positioned to be the right chief at the right time."

In choosing a celebrity cop who still gets regular play in New York gossip columns, city officials knew exactly what they were getting, observers say. The day that the Police Commission announced the three candidates for the LAPD job, Bratton received reporters' calls on his cell phone at a dinner with the mayor of Caracas, Venezuela.

"The city made a decision to get a big-time outsider with an international reputation," said Raphael Sonenshein, a political science professor at California State University, Fullerton, and a long-time observer of city government. "The idea was to get the best (worldwide) thinking ... possible."

Bratton's traveling came as part of the package, he said. "It would be a lot different if they hired a local guy who suddenly got the bug to see the world."

Bratton's predecessor, Bernard C. Parks, took four or five official police-business trips per year to represent the city, police officials said. But, unlike Bratton, Parks didn't have a family and a household to move from thousands of miles away when he was named chief. Parks already had been an LAPD man for 32 years.

Parks didn't even go far when he took personal vacations, and he was known for showing up at Parker Center even on his days off.

Councilman Nate Holden, a Parks supporter who started criticizing Bratton when the former New Yorker became a finalist for the job, questioned whether it is good for the city to have a traveling chief.

"Is it necessary to be out of town this much?" Holden asked. "After all, the crime rate is not dipping. It's going up. And for the public to learn of his absence -- it doesn't make them feel confident."

That was highlighted to the public, Holden said, when city officials held a new conference on Feb. 7 to announce that the city was raising its security level to match the country's high alert level. Bratton -- in Florida at a speaking engagement -- was absent. Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell appeared in his place.

"(Angelenos) want him here until he gets things under control," Holden said.

Bratton doesn't apologize.

"No organization is one person," Bratton said. "And I've got a very capable and talented staff." Also, he said, he's always only a phone call away.

Having a jet-setting celebrity chief is a nonissue for some residents, who care only about how the chief's tenure affects police service.

"It doesn't mean anything to me," said Janette Capaldi of Reseda, who's been involved in community policing for the West Valley for about four years. "I just like the way he's come in and reorganized."

Hahn likes Bratton's being a celebrity.

'I know people don't believe me when I say it, but I like him being in the spotlight," Hahn said during a recent appearance on KFWB's "Ask the Mayor" call-in program. "That means he has to deliver. It's important for him to succeed if Los Angeles is to succeed as a city."

"I think it's necessary for the chief to go to conferences and network with other law enforcement agencies about what's going on," said Councilman Dennis Zine, a 33-year veteran of the LAPD.

As for the frequent bicoastal jaunts? "The man has a life; we've got to let him have a life," Zahn said.

Staff Writers James Nash and Rick Orlov contributed to this report.