The Breakfast Conversation: William J. Bratton

Just a few weeks before he picks up his bags and heads back to New York, LAPD Chief William J. Bratton stopped by the Foundry on Melrose to chat with Los Angeles magazine and 50 or so invited guests about his tenure and what he's learned these last seven years. We've been hosting these Breakfast Conversations for a year now, with people like politico John Emerson and LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines. Candid and 100% Bostonian, Bratton spoke to a group that included former City Councilman (and Bratton booster) Jack Weiss, Board of Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels, Jewish Journal editor Rob Eshman, Witness LA blogger Celeste Fremon, Dateline producer Josh Mankiewicz, novelist (and wife of outgoing DWP head) Gina Nahai, author and past president of the LA County Board of Education Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, and founder of USC's Leadership Institute Warren Bennis about gangs, L.A.'s multi-layered useless bureaucracy, and the aggressive fight his successor will need to wage at City Hall to keep the police department at its current size, let alone its hoped-for expansion.