TIPOFF\Mayor's view on preferences still murky.

Byline: Rick Orlov

MAYOR Richard Riordan has taken a lot of heat from the City Council in recent months over commission appointees who have questioned affirmative action programs with their support of the California Civil Rights Initiative.

It grew so intense last fall that Civil Service Commissioner Joe Gelman and Airport Commissioner Michelle Park-Steel resigned after coming under council criticism for their positions. At the time, Gelman was serving as campaign manager for the initiative.

But not all of Riordan's appointees share Gelman's views.In a little-known action last month, the mayoral-appointed Human Relations Commission voted unanimously to oppose the state initiative and to voice support for the principles of affirmative action.

"Our commission has the authority to act independently of the mayor's office," said Commission President Leslie Frank, of Studio City. "At this point we have not solicited an opinion from the mayor's office and we haven't received one."

While declining to state his own position on the issue, Riordan has asked for a study of city affirmative action programs.

Some other nominees of Riordan are running into trouble with the City Council, but this time it is over where they live.

The council had stalled Riordan's nomination of Mai Lee to the Community Redevelopment Agency board because neither she nor any of the other Riordan appointees lives south of the Santa Monica Freeway.

Riordan thought he had resolved that problem with his nomination recently of San Pedro attorney Juanita Chavez.

But Council members Nate Holden, Mark Ridley-Thomas and Rita Walters are upset with the nomination, saying the panel now has no one living in South Central Los Angeles.

Even though he was cleared of sexual harassment accusations, Holden finds himself these days as the butt of crude jokes stemming from the allegations.

A bumper sticker has been circulating around City Hall that reads: "Holden's Heavy Petting Zoo. Los Angeles-Marina Del Rey-Seoul."

It is in reference to the locations where Holden was accused of harassing female workers, as well as a Korean junket in which the councilman was photographed with topless dancers.

District Attorney Gil Garcetti faced his first re-election challenge last week - perhaps from a much more critical audience than the general electorate he will go before in the March 26 primary.

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys polled its members last week in an unprecedented referendum on Garcetti's management of the D.A.'s office. Results won't be announced until later this month.

"I saw one ballot and someone had written in Attila the Hun and added he would be more sympathetic to us than Garcetti," said one deputy D.A., who asked not to be identified.

Deputy District Attorney Herb Lapin, who is coordinating the straw poll, said he had no clue about what people were writing in, because none of the ballots will be opened until Jan. 22.

"I would suspect there to be a lot of write-ins," Lapin said.

The deputy district attorneys have been upset with Garcetti over his handling of the O.J. Simpson murder case and his subsequent awarding of bonuses to the three top prosecutors of that case.

MEDIA WATCH: For the Los Angeles Times, the Picasso Room has been the place at Times-Mirror Square to wine and dine dignitaries. But what do you call it if you take the lithographs off the wall.

Rumors are circulating that Times Mirror Chairman and Chief Executive Mark Willes, who has brought a corporate conservatism to the newspaper company, was offended by some of the nudes that were hanging in the executive dining room.

But spokesman Steve Meier said there was a different reason.

"We've had that theme for 20-some odd years and we are looking at a change," Meier said. "No decision has been made yet on what that will be."