BUSINESS, FAMILY EMERGENCIES KEEP MEMBERS AWAY.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

The reasons City Council members give for missing meetings are as varied as their rates of attendance.

San Fernando Valley Council members Laura Chick and Mike Feuer, who each missed only five of 139 council meetings last year, had the highest rate of attendance for the entire panel.

This year, however, Chick has missed six meetings out of the of 44 held through April 16, the final date in the Daily News' review of 16 months of council absenteeism. Four of those absences were for city business, city records showed.

Feuer and Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski had the fewest absences from committee meetings.

Unseen workshops

While committee meetings do not result in final votes, and thus are not as crucial as full council meetings, members say they are the unseen workshops of council policy.

``A very significant amount of work is done in committees,'' Feuer said. ``That's where we have an opportunity to delve deeply into key issues. It's much more difficult on the council floor, when one is limited to three minutes at a time to get beneath the surface of a sophisticated question.''

Councilman Joel Wachs, who was absent 20 days including 15 for personal reasons last year, had the most absences of any Valley representative except for former Councilman Richard Alarcon, who was running for the state Senate.

Wachs said most of his council absences were to care for his critically ill mother, who was hospitalized last year.

On some days, Wachs said, he may have missed meetings for medical appointments of his own or to attend board meetings of a national arts foundation of which he is a member.

Wachs said he recorded more personal absences than other members because he scrupulously accounts for his time off.

``A lot of people just call things city business,'' he said. ``I don't if it isn't.''

Away on business

Among council members whose districts include the Valley, Council President John Ferraro missed the most days on city business. He went to New York City to discuss restructuring the Department of Water and Power, took a lobbying trip for the Democratic National Convention, attended a California League of Cities meeting and an airport conference, said his press deputy, Gayle Johnson.

Councilman Hal Bernson, who missed 16 council meetings in 1998, including 10 for city business, said he needed to be away to represent Los Angeles at meetings of various state and regional bodies. Those include Metrolink, the county Local Agency Formation Committee, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and, until March, the state Seismic Safety Commission.

Councilman Richard Alatorre, beset by legal and personal troubles last year, missed the most meetings - nearly half of all council sessions last year - and took 36 days of personal absence.

Alatorre, who is retiring, said he was kept home by two stomach surgeries requiring long hospitalizations. He also was embroiled in a long-running child custody case, failed a cocaine test and entered a rehabilitation program.

But Councilman Mike Hernandez, who was arrested for drug offenses and enrolled in long-term drug and alcohol rehabilitation in 1997, missed less than 10 percent of his council and committee meetings last year.

While most members made it to the vast majority of council meetings, committee attendance - less visible and less scrutinized by the public - dropped to as low as one-third by some members, including Alatorre and Nate Holden.

Wachs also missed about half of the committee meetings he was scheduled to attend. As chairman of the Governmental Efficiency Committee, he was present for all of its meetings - but the committee met on less than 60 percent of the days on which it was scheduled to convene.

Wachs said he cancels meetings of the efficiency and transportation committees whAen there is no urgent business at hand, preferring to hold fewer meetings with more substantial business and more members present.

``If there's not anything that needs to be done urgently I try to consolidate and get the other committee members present,'' he said.

Not productive

He acknowledged that he does not attend the Intergovernmental Relations Committee, chaired by Holden. ``I have just found it not to be productive,'' Wachs said.

Holden, who missed 15 council meetings last year on city business - the most of any member - said his role as chair of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee took him out of town frequently for such events as an NFL conference, the National League of Cities and Congressional Cities conferences, the swearing in of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and other government events.

In addition, he said, he missed several days in mediation sessions for a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him.

Although he missed about two-thirds of the meetings of committees of which he is a member, Holden said he keeps abreast of their proceedings.

``Sometimes you just had a conflict,'' he said. ``That doesn't mean you don't review the material beforehand. So I'm alert when it comes to the council floor.''

The committee whose meetings were canceled most frequently was Rules and Elections, chaired by Ferraro. It met on only about one-fourth of its scheduled dates.

Chick said some committee sessions deal with administrative formalities that do not require the participation of all members, and explained it's difficult to coordinate meetings in City Hall with events in the district.

In some cases, she added, committee meetings may even conflict with each other. Her own Public Safety Committee sometimes clashes with the Public Works Committee, on which she also sits, forcing her to miss some sessions.

Chick said better coordination between meetings is needed to convene joint sessions on issues that concern more than one committee, or to move such items expeditiously through various committee meetings.

``By and large the detailed work of the council is done in committee,'' she said. ``And it's important.''

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PHOTO (1--3) Council members Laura Chick, Mike Feuer and Cindy Miscikowski say a variety of city and personal matters can create absences.