Content area
Full Text
At last, the long, hectic pressure-cooker of a week was done, giving Joel Wachs plenty of time to kill. His workday conservative suits were gone, replaced by a loud blue Hawaiian shirt and baggy pants, and he was off on his Saturday ritual, stalking the galleries of La Brea Avenue for one more addition to his burgeoning private art collection.
Yet there was still no escape from public matters Saturday for the Los Angeles City Council member who had helped broker the elastic and still-tentative arrangement expected to lead to the retirement of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.
Even as Wachs drove to his favorite galleries along La Brea, the agreement he and Council President John Ferraro forged seemed as solid as mist. Despite Wachs' insistence that Gates would retire not much later than February of next year, the chief raised the possibility Saturday that he might remain in his post until early 1993.
"We talked this over and I know what he wants," insisted Wachs as he walked into a gallery filled with 1960s-era photographs of haggard motorcycle outlaws, beatific civil rights workers and bullish Southern sheriffs. Gates is "not looking to drag this on forever . . . he looks forward to retiring in an orderly fashion."