Comrie had an interesting role in the charter endgame. City CAO since the early ’80s, he had been disempowered by the Riordan administration when, early on, it grabbed most of his budgetary responsibilities. Over the past year, Comrie appeared to be clinging to his increasingly symbolic city job simply to ensure — without any detectable official capacity to do so — that the city would get a charter that he might find acceptable.But Comrie was by no means a disinterested observer in the charter wars. Last fall, he pounced on Dick Riordan’s plan to grab important charter powers for the mayor. After a vigorous war of op-eds and memoranda, Riordan finally settled for minimal changes. It was Comrie’s victory and Comrie’s revenge. And now his job is finished, along with the unified document itself.Despite Comrie’s cue, though, a number of Los Angeles City Council members still didn’t get it last Friday. This was the day the council finally got to paw over the final draft, and the occasion was nobody’s garden tea party.
Source: The Grand Finale? | L.A. Weekly