Easily clearing the first hurdle toward his appointment, a City Council panel recommended Monday that Deputy Chief Charlie Beck be confirmed as Los Angeles' 55th chief of police.

Los Angeles police Chief-designate Charlie Beck (seen here addressing the crowd at Van Nuys' city-hall building, on Nov. 3) won the approval of the city's Public Safety Committee on Monday, Nov. 9. (Photo: John McCoy/ Daily News)

Beck, 56, who has been with the department for 33 years, thanked the panel after he was questioned for more than two hours over his plans to continue the reforms instituted by former Chief Bill Bratton.

"I am the past, the present and the future of the Los Angeles Police Department," Beck told the Public Safety Committee. His father was a deputy chief in the department, he has spent his entire adult career with the LAPD and he has two children in the department.

Beck said he plans to take the department into the next step of reform and press it throughout the agency.

"When Bill Bratton came on, we needed a revolution," Beck said. "Now, we need to evolve to the next stage. I want to take those reforms so they are in every squad car in the city."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa personally introduced Beck to the panel, saying his decision to select him was both one of the most important and difficult decisions in his five years as mayor.

"We talked to the best and the brightest across the nation," Villaraigosa said. "It was not an easy decision, until I saw the kind of man Charlie Beck is."

Beck was selected from a field of candidates that included finalists Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell and Deputy Chief Michel Moore.