Panel Uncovers New Loophole in Ethics Code

Los Angeles’ Ethics Commission has found another kink in the conflict-of-interest ordinance, even as its grapples with the fresh discovery that most city employees cannot be penalized under the new ethics law.

Commission officials said it appears that Mayor Tom Bradley’s appointed commissioners are free to work as City Hall lobbyists while they serve in office--even though the law stipulates that they must halt such activities after they step down.

“It appears there are more restrictions on former commissioners than current commissioners,” said Ethics Commission Executive Director Ben Bycel, whose staff is analyzing newfound loopholes in the year-old law this week.

Bycel said the commission “is only now turning over these rocks and looking under them . . . because it hasn’t had the staff to turn over all the rocks on the ordinance landscape.”

Indeed, the part-time commission has been struggling for months to establish and enforce the new City Hall code of conduct amid waves of complaints from city employees and officials that the new restrictions on gifts and disclosure of personal finances go too far. Officials say that the ethics unit is understaffed and overworked.

“The commission is doing the best it can under the circumstances,” said Lisa Foster, executive director of California Common Cause. “The trouble they are having is a reflection of how the City Council is treating the commission--it is an unwelcome guest at City Hall.”

City Councilman Michael Woo said: “The council has been one of the major stumbling blocks for the entire ethics reform effort. . . . It has treated the Ethics Commission as if it was a nest of vermin.”

City Council President John Ferraro disagreed: “People voted for the ethics package by a big margin; why would we openly try to undercut it?”

Ferraro recently introduced a motion to have the entire ethics law re-evaluated “because of all the problems they are having.”

The ethics law was handily approved by voters in June, 1990, in the wake of allegations of ethics violations in the mayor’s office. The law included a raise for council members. Problems with enactment of the law were scheduled to be addressed today at an Ethics Commission meeting.

Bycel complained that the commission has been unable to gain permission from the city attorney’s office to hire a full-time independent attorney to help interpret the arcane and confusing language of the ordinance.

Instead, the commission has “had to rely heavily on the city attorney’s office for advice,” Bycel said, even though the office is also overextended and only able to provide part-time legal assistance.

Ferraro said he would support providing the ethics panel with its own attorney.

The commission’s enforcement difficulties were compounded Wednesday when a group of city officials and their relatives filed a suit challenging parts of the ethics package on the grounds that its regulations are excessive and an invasion of privacy.

Doug Ring, a city library commissioner, attorney and lobbyist who filed the Superior Court suit, said a hearing on the complaint is scheduled in August--a few months before an Oct. 1 deadline for city officials to file a new round of personal financial disclosure forms.

In upcoming weeks, the commission is expected to begin sorting out how it should regulate lobbying by present and former commissioners. Some observers say that the debate poses significant questions.

“I think it’s a fundamental question about the ethics ordinance and what kind of city we want to have,” said Foster, whose watchdog organization generally supports tougher lobbying restrictions on commissioners. “The public perceives there is a sort of a City Hall elite . . . a group of powerful business people, lobbyists and lawmakers who have influence.”

For many years, state and city laws have banned present and former commissioners from lobbying their own branch of city government. The restrictions were expanded under the ethics laws, forbidding former commissioners to lobby any branch of city government for a year after resigning.

Assistant City Atty. Tony Alperin said the restrictions do not apply to commissioners in office, freeing them to lobby any agency other than their own.

Bycel and Foster say a citywide ban on lobbying by mayoral appointees could help reduce public suspicions of insider political influence at City Hall.

“No matter what we say,” Bycel said, “it’s my sense that the guy in the street doesn’t like the smell” of commissioners lobbying other city officials.