After Pay Is Cut, Ethics Chief May Refuse Job : City Hall: Council decides $90,000 salary set by new commission is too high and slashes $14,000. Zelman says the move violates his panel’s independence.

Irked by a $14,000 cut in his promised salary, Los Angeles’ first appointee as city ethics chief said Tuesday he may refuse the job.

Walter A. Zelman, former director of California Common Cause, was to assume his duties as executive director of the city’s new Ethics Commission this morning, but he said late Tuesday he planned to skip a scheduled 7:45 a.m. meeting.

Earlier Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted 9 to 5 to slash Zelman’s pay from the $90,000 proposed by the Ethics Commission to $76,254.

“I’m surprised that the council doesn’t see the inappropriateness of what they did,” Zelman said. “They should not be intervening dramatically in the internal workings of the Ethics Commission. This is a position that should be insulated from the council.”

The Ethics Commission was created by voters last June through passage of Proposition H, a wide-ranging ethics-in-government package placed on the ballot by the council. The measure took effect Jan. 1, and the five-member commission is now hiring a staff.

The council’s action Tuesday, Zelman said, is the type of conflict of interest that the new commission was set up to guard against.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who proposed the pay cut, was a vocal critic of Proposition H. He said Tuesday he objected to the salary “for strictly economic reasons,” arguing that the city budget cannot support it.

“I think Mr. Zelman was an excellent choice,” Yaroslavsky said. “I hope he will take this job, even if it doesn’t pay $90,000 a year,” an amount Yaroslavsky called “outrageous.”

“That’s an absolutely absurd statement,” countered Councilwoman Joy Picus. “We’re talking about a few thousand dollars and it will not solve the city’s fiscal problems.”

Zelman defended the salary as appropriate, based on his 13 years of experience in the government ethics field. When he agreed to take the job a month ago, he said, the salary was set at $90,000 through negotiations with the commission and the city’s Personnel Department. Last week, the council’s Human Resources and Labor Relations Committee approved the salary and sent the matter to the council.

Proposition H gave the Ethics Commission the sole power to choose an executive director, but gave the council the authority to set a salary.

Zelman, 47, said he plans to consult with family, friends and commission members before deciding whether to turn down the job. While the amount of the cut is “an issue,” Zelman said he is more concerned with the principle raised by the council’s intervention.

Some on the council expressed similar concern.

“If campaign reform means anything, we have to start out in the right way, by insulating the executive officer from political pressures,” said Councilman Marvin Braude.

Councilman Michael Woo said the cut raises the issue of how independent the top staff of the commission will be. Tinkering with pay, Woo said, could “create an incentive for the ethics officer to be favorable to members of the council, hoping that some day he or she might be able to get some kind of raise.”

Council members Picus, Woo, Braude, Joel Wachs and Gloria Molina voted against the pay cut.

Under the Charter amendment approved by the voters last year, the Ethics Commission is to be an independent body enforcing laws relating to campaign fund-raising and conflicts of interest among city officials and employees.

Zelman was executive director of California Common Cause for 12 years, until leaving to run unsuccessfully for state insurance commissioner last year.