CHIEF GETS FIRST COLD SHOULDER FROM COUNCIL.

Byline: Patrick McGreevy Daily News Staff Writer

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks was handed his first major political setback since taking office last year when the City Council rejected his request Wednesday for a November ballot measure to give him more power to pick his command officers.

The council also rejected Parks' request to place a $639 million bond measure on the November ballot to pay for new police stations and a new police headquarters building.

Some observers wondered if the honeymoon with the city's elected leaders is over for Parks, who next month will complete his first year as chief.

``It does add questions about whether there is waning support for the chief,'' said police union director Dennis Zine, who testified against the proposed ballot measure to change some civil service rules.

On a 7-5 vote, the council refused to put the management question on the ballot despite pleas from Parks, who wants the top-11 staff positions exempted from civil service to let him pick his own command team.

Parks said stripping civil-service protections from eight deputy chiefs, an executive officer, a chief public information officer and a department computer chief would give him more flexibility ``to select them and use them for the department as they are most effective.''

Councilman Nate Holden and city union leaders said removing civil service protections could lead to cronyism under future police chiefs.

``We think it reeks of East Coast cronyism and nepotism where they bring in their friends,'' Zine said, adding that it could sharply increase pensions for favored captains.

Fire Department union leader Tom Curry called the change ``a dangerous precedent that almost certainly will lead to abuse of the system.''

Holden cited corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department earlier this century, when police command positions were handed to cronies.

Council members Laura Chick and Jackie Goldberg noted that voters already approved Proposition J, which allows 150 city positions to be exempt from civil service. Unions were offered a cap on exemptions during negotiations over that measure, Goldberg said. ``To go and now raise that number is . . . not acting in good faith,'' Goldberg said.

She and Chick said Parks could apply to include the eight deputy chief positions under Proposition J's provisions for 150 exemptions.

Parks said he dislikes the Proposition J that would require him to get approval from two-thirds of the City Council before exempting each deputy chief from civil service.

``It is, in my judgment, not in our interest to include deputy chiefs in the 150,'' Parks said, ``because it would require us to get two-thirds. . . . I think that is really the politicization of the issue vs. the chief making the decision.''

He said it takes about 10 steps to get council approval for each exemption under Proposition J. That could leave a police chief, he said, with ``a system where we don't have the ability to pick the people we want.''