CITY COUNCIL OKS CHARTER BALLOT SUMMARY DESPITE LAWSUIT THREAT.

Byline: Patrick McGreevy Daily News Staff Writer

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a ballot summary for Mayor Richard Riordan's charter reform initiative Friday despite the threat of a lawsuit over charges the written digest is biased and inaccurate.

James Hamilton, an attorney for Citizens to Turn L.A. Around, said he will likely go to a federal judge on Monday to block the city from printing ballots with what he said was a misleading summary of arguments for and against Proposition 8.

Hamilton urged the council - which only agreed to put the Riordan-backed initiative on the April 8 ballot under threat of federal court sanctions - to withdraw the digest entirely or to send it back to the committee that drafted it for changes.

``I'm here to oppose that digest because it is inaccurate, it is not impartial, and in certain respects it is false and misleading,'' he said.

Hamilton said the argument against the initiative is twice as long, that the digest says the commission will ``draft'' a new charter rather than the more accurate ``propose'' a new charter and that the argument for the measure does not say the commission has power to submit reforms directly to voters.

Overall, the digest can give a misleading impression that the commission has power to change the charter without voter approval, backers said.

The council rejected those arguments, saying the digests are impartial.

Council members said they did not want to interfere in the workings of the committee set up to summarize ballot arguments.

``This is not a process that I think we ought to politicize,'' said Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg. ``We have kept this at arm's length from us. We should keep it that way.''

The five-member committee is made up of Deputy City Attorney Gail Weingart representing the city attorney, city analyst Christine Yee Hollis representing the council's chief legislative analyst, retired banker Peter Schick representing the Mayor's Office, and business attorney Karen Newman and retired high-school teacher Henry Chesler, both representing Council President John Ferraro.

The committee was set up by the council in the 1970s to provide an independent way of summarizing and simplifying lengthy ballot arguments into digests of 300 words or less that can be read by anyone with at least an eighth-grade reading level, Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton said.

Deaton told the council that the panel cannot make fundamental changes in the arguments even if they are inaccurate or misleading.

``It's not a truth squad,'' said Councilman Joel Wachs, who supports the mayor's initiative but defended the digest committee Friday.

Wachs said some of the arguments are inaccurate, and he suggested Hamilton seek court relief.

The council has appointed a 21-member commission to recommend changes in the 72-year-old, 700-page charter, which is the blueprint for city government. The council retained power to veto or revise reforms recommended by its panel before putting them on the ballot.

Riordan has said he doesn't trust the council to let voters consider true reforms, so he collected 304,000 signatures to qualify an initiative which would create an elected commission with power to submit charter changes directly to the voters.

Hamilton said the digest leaves out of the argument for the initiative that the elected commission can submit reforms directly to the voters without council revision, while the council's panel cannot.

Councilman Mike Feuer said the digest section summarizing the proposal says, ``The council would have to submit the proposed new charter to the city voters without changes.''

Hamilton argued that the sentence should read, ``The proposed new charter would be submitted to the city voters without changes.'' Backers said mentioning the council would confuse voters.