Kindel Quits Key City Post; 4th to Leave in 3 Months

Maureen Kindel, president of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works and one of Mayor Tom Bradley’s closest political advisers, said Wednesday that she is leaving her City Hall job to form a local lobbying firm and will become finance chairman for Bradley’s reelection campaign.

Kindel’s will be the fourth resignation of a top aide in the Bradley administration in the last three months. Former Deputy Mayor Tom Houston left in June to join a local law firm and was followed a month later by Fran Savitch, a longtime Bradley assistant, who departed for a Century City public relations firm.

In addition, it was disclosed Wednesday that Christopher Stewart has announced his resignation as a member of the City Redevelopment Agency. Stewart, also president of the Central City Assn., is a top adviser to Bradley.

Kindel told The Times that she notified Bradley of her decision to resign by Oct. 1 from her $60,357-a-year job at a hastily called meeting in the mayor’s office late Wednesday.

“I told the mayor that I would be leaving, and that I would be forming a (lobbying) firm,” she said. Kindel, whose public works board has been blamed for repeated sewage spills and criticized for lax street repairs, denied that political pressures were responsible for her decision. She said her departure would be for reasons that are entirely financial.

“I am leaving with deep regret,” she said. “I love government service, but there are personal obligations that can best be met by my working in the private sector.”

Kindel arranged the Wednesday afternoon meeting with Bradley after a Times reporter had told her that he was going to write a story disclosing that she was considering resigning.

During the 20-minute session, she said, Bradley accepted her decision, “and then we decided that I would serve as the finance chairman for his reelection campaign.”

Bradley is expected to face a tough reelection bid for a fifth term against such probable challengers as City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. And Kindel said she hopes to raise about $3 million--”a shoot-from-the-hip figure”--for the 1989 race.

Although her resignation is one of several from the Bradley administration, Kindel said there was no connection between her departure and the others. She said she had been planning to leave City Hall for some time and Bradley knew it, but when she announced a specific date to him on Wednesday, it was during “a very serious conversation.” She said the mayor regretted her decision.

Kindel said she had not had time to prepare a written resignation and would meet later with Bradley to talk about the details, as well as to discuss any possible successor whom the mayor would appoint.

Cites Affiliation

The firm that Kindel said she is forming will be affiliated with the Susan Davis Companies in Washington, a public affairs and government relations firm that has represented corporate clients such as Eastman Kodak Co. She said her partner will be Cristina Rose, a Los Angeles-based lobbyist who works primarily in Sacramento.

Rose, who also serves as a commissioner on the city Environmental Quality Review Board, told The Times that she expects to resign her appointment when the partnership is established to avoid any appearance of a conflict-of-interest between her city job and the new lobbying firm.

However, Rose said the business arrangement has not been completed.

“We have been talking for several years about forming a partnership and have been talking more seriously over the last several months,” Rose said. “Our intentions are serious but the final decisions have not been made.”

Kindel, 49, was named by Bradley in 1979 to the five-member public works board and was elected its president the following year, a post she has held ever since.

Policy-Setting Board

The board, which has a policy-setting authority second only to the City Council, oversees construction and maintenance of city streets and sewers, issues permits to allow movie and television crews to film on city streets and awards lucrative city contracts.

Recently, the board has been the target of criticism after a series of sewage spills into the Santa Monica Bay. Last year, the city also settled a 10-year-old lawsuit against Los Angeles by the state and the federal Environmental Protection Agency that included a record $625,000 fine for past violations. Kindel said Wednesday that many of the problems have been corrected.

Kindel said that in her new role she will specialize in “issues management, special events and business development” for the lobbying firm and that she does not plan to lobby City Hall, although “I wouldn’t have any aversion to doing that at an appropriate time.”

Lobbying Restrictions

As a lobbyist, Kindel could represent clients before city agencies with some exceptions. Those restrictions would include a prohibition against dealing with any matter in which she had been “personally and substantially” involved while a public works commissioner, according to Assistant City Atty. Anthony Alperin.

If she had been involved in some matter--but not to a substantial degree--Kindel also would be prohibited from representing a client on that matter for at least one year.

In confirming her imminent departure, Kindel said Wednesday that she had not yet informed any of her fellow board members. And at one point in the interview, she excused herself to phone her husband, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt, to tell him that she had announced her resignation. “He doesn’t know yet,” she said.