Ex-City Clerk’s Appeal to Get Open Hearing : Ruling: Elias Martinez was discharged over sexual harassment allegations. City administrative officer says reinstatement proceeedings should be open to the public.

Former Los Angeles City Clerk Elias (Lee) Martinez, who was fired in June for allegedly sexually harassing several female subordinates, will be able to question his accusers in public during his appeal of the charges, a city administrative officer ruled Monday.

The city attorney’s office had attempted to close the hearing to the public and press, citing the privacy of the accusers. But attorneys for Martinez and the Los Angeles Times kept the hearing open.

“He has lost his reputation,” said Martinez’s attorney, Robert Dohrmann. “He has a right to clear his name.”

During a 32-year career with the city, Martinez, 54, rose from garage attendant to one of the city’s highest-ranking positions. But his tenure ended last month when the City Council upheld a recommendation by former Mayor Tom Bradley to fire him.

The allegations arose in 1991 when a clerk-typist accused Martinez of fondling her on three occasions. Other women later accused him of ogling them and asking suggestive questions.

Martinez--who sat stone-faced at his lawyer’s side Monday with his wife behind him--has denied the charges and has portrayed his firing as a political dispute between the former clerk and Bradley. He is pursuing an appeal through the city’s Civil Service Commission to win back his $116,000-a-year post.

Deputy City Atty. Molly Roff-Sheridan argued that an open hearing might become “a circus or a spectacle.” She cited the 1991 public standoff between law professor Anita Hill and then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

In court papers, she said opening the hearing would subject the accusers to unnecessary embarrassment and possible retaliation. She requested that the women be referred to by numbers throughout the hearing, which will begin today and probably extend into next week.

Kelli L. Sager, an attorney representing The Times, said the city had failed to demonstrate a compelling reason for closing what is supposed to be a public hearing.

“The Times feels very strongly that this is an important hearing and that the public and press should be given access to all of the proceedings,” Sager said.

After questioning several of the accusers in private, hearing officer Nancy Roberts Londsdale rejected the notion that the accusers would be subject to retaliation and ruled that the proceedings ought to be open. But she reserved the right to close the proceedings should they become unruly.