WHO IS RUNNING THE SHOW HERE?

If Boston, New York and Chicago Can Have Successful Marathons, Why Not Los Angeles? That’s What the City Council Wants to Know. So It Has Decided to Get Into the Act. But It Could Be That Politics and Long-Distance Racing Don’t Mix.

After several hours of hearings by a joint committee, the raging issue of the Los Angeles Marathon finally reached the city council chambers.

Only lightly touched upon in the committee hearings had been the question of whether Los Angeles needs a marathon.

The answer, as best as can be determined, is that it does because New York, Chicago and Boston each have one.

As Councilman David Cunningham said: “I think it can be a positive thing for the city. After all, the Boston Marathon put Boston on the map.”

That will give the folks at Harvard and MIT something to talk about at the next tea party.

Another question introduced during the committee hearings, but never answered: If, indeed, Los Angeles needs a marathon, why does the city council believe it has to be at the starting line?

The marathons in New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Houston and every other place in the world that has one, including Long Beach, have proceeded quite smoothly without pushes from their local governments.

In introducing the committee’s findings to the entire body, Cunningham said proudly: “We’ve gotten into an area where no city has gotten involved before. We are indeed breaking new ground.”

Almost an hour into the discussion, some of the council members probably were wondering if that new ground being broken might not be an earthquake.

What we have here is a situation where the politics of a city meet the politics of the running world.

Sometimes it is funny.

Sometimes it is intriguing.

The city’s politicians show clearly that they know little about running a marathon, but the runners show just as clearly that they know even less about running a city.

In the end, the city’s politicians prevail.

We know that because we still have a city. We may or may not have a marathon.

Until this, most of the council members probably thought that the most difficult thing about running a marathon was running in one.

They discovered otherwise. As Tom Sturak of the L.A. International Marathon, one of nine groups vying for the city’s approval as official organizer of the proposed L.A. Marathon, told them during public discussion: “You may be breaking new ground, but I suggest you may upturn a tangle of roots and hard rocks you never expected to find.”

But the council had gone too far to turn back.

When public discussion was finished, the president pro tem of the council recognized Councilman Gilbert Lindsay, co-chairman of the joint committee assigned to study the feasibility of a L.A. Marathon.

He cleared his throat and began: “We’ve had many meetings on the library . . . “

Silence.

The other council members, perplexed, looked at each other. The library?

”. . . Are we talking about the library?” Lindsay asked. “Mr. Lindsay,” the president pro tem said. “We’re talking about the marathon.”

There is a temptation at this point to say everyone is always talking about the L.A. Marathon, but no one ever does anything about it. In fact, the opposite probably is closer to the truth.

There was the 1982 L.A. Marathon, also known as the Miller Lite Marathon. Many of the runners got lost when they went one way and the course went another.

That was a marathon that didn’t even put the course on the map, much less Los Angeles.

Considered by many to be the best L.A. Marathon was the one put together last February by Sturak, former UCLA track coach Jim Bush, and local real-estate broker Ed Staley. It provided a trial run for the course that was used five months later for the Olympic marathons.

For running purists, it was an unqualified success.

For nearly everyone else, it was no more than a blip on the screen. The marathon attracted little attention--worldwide, nationally or even locally.

When the group tried to revive the marathon for 1985, it couldn’t find a sponsor.

Nevertheless, an aide to councilman Howard Finn had worked as a course marshall during the Olympic marathons and was so enthusiastic that he recommended that the city become involved in the L.A. Marathon. The result was the Finn-Bernson Motion, which called for a committee to study the feasibility of a marathon.

The city’s chief legislative analyst, William McCarley, after advertising nationally for proposals, received nine responses by the Dec. 17 deadline. One stipulation was that there would be no expense to the city.

Upon review, a panel from the offices of McCarley, the city administrative officer and the Dept. of Public Works eliminated all but three of the proposals.

One of the final groups was headed by Dennis Ikenberry, who has considerable experience at organizing 10-kilometer runs and marathons, and has numerous contacts within the running world.

Another was headed by Bill Bedford. He and H.D. Thoreau were co-commissioners for track and field at the Olympics and have been credited for much of the success of the Olympic marathons.

In allocating points to the group’s proposals, the review panel ranked those groups 1-2.

The third finalist group was headed by William Burke, a prominent local businessman who had no background in running and had never even considered organizing a marathon until a couple of months earlier. His sports administrative experience was as the Olympic tennis commissioner.

Burke, however, did have a great deal of experience in the political arena.

As the husband of Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, a former congresswoman, state assemblywoman and county supervisor, he includes several council members among his friends.

Guess who got the bid.

When it became obvious that the joint committee was going to recommend that the council designate Burke’s group, Brad Malamud, an attorney for Ikenberry’s group, wanted to know why the rankings had not carried more weight. Specifically, he wanted to know why his group was not getting the bid.

The question was referred to McCarley, who said that the panel, with no experience in the organization of marathons, had not been entirely confident in its order of rankings.

McCarley said that, whereas the finalists had been clearly better than the six other groups that had submitted proposals, there was not enough difference among the final three to designate a clear winner.

That was a major disappointment to Ikenberry, whom the panel had judged to have the most expertise in organizing and operating marathons.

The panel had also considered Bedford’s plans for recruiting runners and community involvement the best. His plan for a course also had been ranked highest.

Burke had been given the highest scores for sponsorship. He ranked last in expertise, however, and his plans for recruiting runners and the course also had been ranked third.

That is not to say that the panel had considered Burke’s proposal to be poor, just that it was third best.

But when McCarley chose not to endorse the panel’s rankings, the politicians felt free to engage in politics. As anyone who has been around a legislative body knows, that can lead to all sorts of scenarios.

Malamud, the attorney for Ikenberry’s group, submitted Ikenberry’s proposal 30 minutes before the 5 p.m. deadline Dec. 17, then waited outside the chief legislative analyst’s office to see who else was bidding.

Shortly after 5 p.m., Malamud said, three men and a woman walked out of the CLA’s office with the proposals in their arms.

The woman was J.P. Ellman, an analyst in McCarley’s office. The men were Ron Deaton, assistant chief legislative analyst, Gregg Irish, an aide to Councilman Cunningham, and Burke.

Malamud confronted Burke, asking if it was ethical for him, as one of the bidders, to have his hands on his competitors’ proposals.

Burke said that Ellman had asked him to help her in carrying the proposals.

“That was the biggest mistake of my life,” Burke said when asked about the incident several weeks later. “I should have learned a long time ago that you shouldn’t carry a woman’s books.

“Basically, I had two choices. I could help her carry the proposals or I could let the guy intimidate me. I decided not to let him intimidate me.”

Burke said he delivered the proposals to another office without reading them.

Malamud said he had no evidence to the contrary. But he also said that wasn’t the point he was trying to make in repeating the incident. The point, he said, is that Burke knows his way around City Hall.

“I’m not criticizing him for that,” Malamud said. “If we had the political connections he has, we would have used them, too.”

In fact, Ikenberry does have a friend on the council, Howard Finn. But whereas it was Finn, along with councilman Hal Bernson, who had inspired the council’s involvement in the marathon, Finn was not on the joint committee that studied the proposals.

The co-chairman of that committee, as we have seen, was Lindsay, a strong supporter of Burke.

Lindsay, 84, provided the committee with comic relief, some of it probably intentional and some of it probably not.

He was late for one hearing, which was being delayed until his arrival. After almost 30 minutes of waiting, the other co-chairman, Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, decided to return to his office.

Within seconds after Yaroslavsky’s departure, Lindsay, almost as if he had been cued, walked in.

Surveying the room, he said, “Well, if Chairman Yaroslavsky isn’t going to come to this meeting, I don’t know why I should.”

On another occasion during the hearings, Lindsay got confused and began asking questions of one of the bidders that were supposed to have been addressed to McCarley.

After presenting his proposal to the committee, Jim Bush returned to his seat and said he thought Lindsay had been asleep.

But whenever anyone offered a criticism of Burke, Lindsay was wide awake.

Responding to the claims of Burke’s rivals that Burke did not have the experience to organize a marathon, Lindsay said, “Peter Ueberroth had no experience putting on the Olympics. Look at Harry Usher. He’s the commissioner of the USFL. Show him a football and a basketball, and he wouldn’t know one from the other. But he’s the head monkey.”

Lindsay’s antics both amused and annoyed the other bidders, but they were more concerned about Burke’s relationship with Cunningham.

“Every time we went to Cunningham’s office, Burke was there,” said Judy Ikenberry, Dennis’ wife. “Anything that was done from then on was just going through the motions.”

Although Burke said he could not detect any bias in Cunningham’s line of questioning during the hearings, the other bidders said they thought it was obvious that the councilman was the point man for his friend’s proposal. There was also a rumor that Cunningham is the godfather of Burke’s youngest daughter, Autumn.

Burke denied it.

“Dave likes to go around and tell people that he’s Autumn’s godfather, but he’s just being a politician,” Burke said. “He knew her when she was born, but he’s not her godfather.

“I’ve known Dave for 10 years. I like him. But no one on the city council gives me a harder time than Dave Cunningham. People can tell you about times when we’ve fought like dogs.”

Cunningham acted as if he was insulted when asked about the rumor.

“That’s the height of distaste,” he said. “If I was her godfather or was not her godfather, I don’t know what difference it makes. That child is not putting in a bid.”

As for whether he had any advantage over the other groups because of his political connections, Burke said: “It really stunned me that people would question my relationship with people on the council. There’s no question I’m friends with some of the council members, but that kind of thing doesn’t work in the L.A. City Council. Or let me say that it doesn’t work for me.

“If it did, I’d be down here every day seeking deals more lucrative than a marathon.”

Just how lucrative is a marathon?

Apparently not as lucrative as Burke thought when he got involved.

“I would love to see a profit,” he said. “But in the cold reality of life, the more I face the reality of it, the more I see it cannot make a profit.”

That also was a disappointment to the council, which had hoped to share in the net.

When it became obvious that there would be no net, Lindsay sighed. “No net, no city, huh?” he said.

So why does Burke want to organize a marathon?

Most of the other bidders wanted to be involved because organizing races is the way they make their livings. But Burke has numerous other business interests. He is chairman of the board of the Genesis International Trading Co. and president of the World Mining Development Co.

He presumably will make a modest salary from organizing the marathon. Burke declined to put a dollar amount on “modest salary.”

“Considering the history of marathons in this city, people said I would be putting myself up for ridicule by being associated with it,” Burke said. “The more they tried to discourage me, the more I was determined.

“I wanted to show people we could put on a marathon that would be acceptable and that would also appeal to the different cross sections of this city. I also thought we might raise some money for charity. I wasn’t as sure we could do all of those things when we started as I am now.”

Even if everything else had been equal, Burke probably still would have had Cunningham’s support. Cunningham, who is black, made it clear from the beginning that he put a high priority on the minority and female representation among the groups.

Asked by attorney Malamud at one point during a hearing why he was supporting Burke, Cunningham said: “Considering the demographics of the city, I see one group that reflects what Los Angeles is becoming. That clouds my vision.”

Burke is black, and one of his partners, Marie Patrick, is a woman.

The other finalists also included minorities and women in their groups, but only in Burke’s group were they in positions of authority.

Cunningham made a point of asking each group about the number of blacks, females, Orientals and Latinos it included.

At one point, Yaroslavsky interrupted Cunningham’s questioning to ask lightheartedly: “Where are the Jews in this sport?”

Some of the other committee members and their aides laughed. Not Cunningham.

“No, no, no,” he said. “I don’t ask these questions lightly. People think it’s funny. But let me tell you about the (Olympic) marathon that came through my district.

“When I looked around for the leadership of the marathon, it was--and there was nothing wrong with it--it was male, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant.

“And when I took a look at the runners as they came in the Coliseum, I found there was a hue and cry of rainbows that were running in the race.

“I would suggest one of the most embarrassing things is that all the proposals have no consideration for Hispanic involvement.”

Later, Cunningham asked Bush, the former UCLA track coach whose group was ranked fourth in the panel’s report, about the minority involvement of his group.

Among the six persons Bush named, there were two blacks and a woman.

Added one of his partners, Ed Staley: “We also have a Carlos Ramirez who is working for us on the finish line.”

The joint committee voted, 5-0, to recommend that Burke’s group be designated as the organizer. The only member of the committee not voting for Burke was Joel Wachs, who was absent. Still, Burke said he had been apprehensive until the votes were cast.

Slipping into a sports metaphor, Burke said, “It’s like we were leading, 1-0, in the last inning and someone hit a grand slam to win it, 5-0. Never mind the score; it was a close game.”

That was only because Burke’s team was facing one of the council’s most tenacious hardball players, Yaroslavsky.

Yaroslavsky’s quarrel was not with Burke but with The Athletics Congress, the national governing body for road running.

Race organizers are required to get sanctions from their local TAC associations. In Los Angeles, that’s the Southern Pacific Assn. of TAC.

If prize money is awarded for a race, or if international athletes are involved, which would be the case in the L.A. Marathon, TAC’s national office in Indianapolis, known as TAC/USA, must also give its approval.

Five days before the deadline for submitting proposals to the city, Alvin Chriss, special assistant to the executive director of TAC/USA, wrote to Burke, supporting Burke’s effort.

“It is the view of TAC/USA that only (Burke) is very well suited to be the designee of the City of Los Angeles,” Chriss said in the letter.

In testimony before the committee, Chriss later said he made the recommendation without reading the proposals of any of the eight other groups in the bidding.

According to the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, national governing bodies are empowered to protect their sports’ best interests.

As TAC/USA officials interpret the law, that gives them broad latitude. As Chriss explained it, it was in the best interests of road racing to endorse the Burke group.

Yaroslavsky wondered if there was more to it than that.

As a runner and the organizer of the Westwood 10K, Yaroslavsky was obviously more interested in the L.A. Marathon when the hearings began than some of the other council members.

Already he had been disturbed by TAC’s endorsement, which he considered an effort by the governing body to dictate to the council.

“The manner in which it was done, the ringing manner in which it was done, it was something like I had never seen done in my life,” Yaroslavsky said during one hearing.

He turned to the chief legislative analyst.

“Have you ever seen anything like that, Mr. McCarley? You’ve been in government how long? Twenty years? You’ve dealt with federally and state promulgated regulations and rules. Have you ever seen an agency make that kind of endorsement on an RFP (request for proposal) or bid basis?”

McCarley shook his head.

Yaroslavsky was even more offended after hearing Chriss’ presentation before the committee. The councilman did some research on TAC, and it was obvious from his comments during the hearings that he did not like what he had found.

Yaroslavsky’s attention was drawn to an item in Burke’s budget that called for TAC to be paid $65,000 in sanctioning fees for 1986, the first year of the marathon.

During Burke’s interview with the committee, Yaroslavsky asked, “Why does your budget contain $65,000 for TAC approval and no other budget contains more than $4,500?”

Burke said: “That’s a very good question, Councilman. (It’s) because, under the regulations we saw, we understood that runner recruitment would be best handled by TAC. . . . “

Yaroslavsky interrupted Burke, beginning his first assault on TAC.

“This is not a criticism of you,” he said. “But let me tell you something, Mr. Burke. If I ever get to the United States Congress, or if I have any influence over the United States Congress, TAC’s on my list. I have, the last two days, done more research on TAC than I did for my master’s thesis at UCLA, and let me tell you, I think it’s scandalous.

“It’s not a reflection on Mr. Burke because all of the bidders are up against the same deal, but what I want to ask . . . “

Cunningham attempted to intercede with a defense of TAC, comparing Chriss to Commissioner Pete Rozelle of the National Football League. Even Chriss rejected that distinction.

Yaroslavsky wouldn’t let Cunningham finish, returning to his questioning of Burke.

Yaroslavsky: “The $65,000, the difference between your budgeted item and everybody else is money that is going into TAC’s pocket. Is that right?”

Burke: “Absolutely not true.”

Yaroslavsky: “Well, who then gets paid that money to recruit the athletes?”

Burke named Allan Steinfeld of the New York Marathon and Fred Moore of the Continental Homes 10K in Phoenix. Both had been contacted by Chriss to learn if they would aid Burke in recruiting runners, even though both were committed to other L.A. groups. Burke: “It’s a pass-through. TAC doesn’t get the money.”

Yaroslavsky: “Why do you get a pass-through? A pass-through usually means you get a piece of the action.”

Burke: “You can take up that question with Mr. Chriss.”

Yaroslavsky: “You’re right. I said at the beginning it’s not a criticism of you, Bill, and I don’t want it to be interpreted as such. It is a question of Mr. Chriss, and it’s a question that I think needs to be asked, not just in connection with the Los Angeles Marathon, but I’ve now been exposed to so much of this, frankly, crap.

“The presentation (by Chriss) prompted me to want to look into this a little more closely. And it is really something. These poor athletes--not the stars--but those other athletes who make up the 95% who aren’t the stars, have to put up with that agency.

“There ought to be a Congressional investigation. For a federally sanctioned, U.S. law-promulgated agency, to behave the way you’ve behaved is unbelievable.

“Even the chief of police has never even approached that level of arrogance, and you know how I feel about him. Boy, you make me forget about him in a hurry. Well, Mr. Chriss, you have me to thank if you ever see me in a Senate or House Committee room cross-examining Mr. Cassell.”

Ollan Cassell is TAC’s executive director.

Yaroslavsky later had an opportunity to question Chriss about the $65,000.

Yaroslavsky: “It struck me, kind of like Columbo, that’s kind of curious. Why would TAC, which is promulgated by federal law, endorse one bidder without having seen the proposals of any other bidder?

“You testified, frankly, that the principle reason originally that you offered for not offering the same kind of endorsement for anyone else is that they didn’t have the courtesy to pick up the phone and call. I think those were precisely your words or close to it. My question to you is does TAC/National, which you represent, gain any economic benefit by the successful award to one bidder or another?”

Chriss: “None whatsoever.”

Yaroslavsky: “So when you represent an athlete, or when you offer to get an athlete and you become the so-called pass-through agency . . . “

Chriss: “Those were not my words.”

Yaroslavsky: “Do you understand what the ($65,000) is for?”

Chriss: “Sir, that line item which you are referring to has never been seen by me. Had I been requested my opinion before it was put in, I would have said not to put it in.”

Yaroslavsky: “That would have been my advice, by the way, too.”

Chriss: “While your curiosity is understandable and perhaps your legislative interest is understandable, the inferred judgment that there is something nefarious going on is not understandable, councilman.”

Yaroslavsky: “Nefarious is your word.”

Chriss: “I understand that. But I listen close, and I know what I’m being told when I’m being told something.”

Yaroslavsky: “But as you say, my suspicion was understandable.”

In a subsequent interview, Burke said the $65,000 written into the budget for TAC had been a mistake. He said his accountant, David Apathy, knew money had to be budgeted for recruiting runners but didn’t know how to record it.

“The money was to compensate agents,” Apathy said. “Somehow, it got put in that line item. Perhaps, with additional time, we would have caught that. I know TAC was not pleased with the way the money was reported. It’s unfortunate.”

But for the next four years of the marathon, Apathy’s proposed budget listed only $5,000 for TAC sanctioning.

If he had thought the money recorded for TAC sanctioning was in part to compensate agents for recruiting runners, wouldn’t the amount budgeted for that have remained about the same in subsequent years? Why would it cost $65,000 for TAC sanctioning, including the recruitment of runners, the first year and only $5,000 for each of the next four years?

“That’s a good question,” Apathy said. “Marie Patrick and Bill Burke, those people came up with the figures. I put the pieces together. This particular one doesn’t make sense.”

Chriss told The Times he was unaware of the $65,000 for TAC in the budget until the hearings.

“If we were trying to conceal anything, we wouldn’t have put it in the budget and labeled it,” Burke said.

Nevertheless, Yaroslavsky moved that the final proposal read that no one either directly or indirectly involved with TAC should receive any money other than the normal sanctioning fee, ranging from $50 to $4,500. There were no objections.

With that understanding, Yaroslavsky voted with the other committee members present to recommend that Burke’s group be designated the official organizer of the L.A. Marathon.

The City Council ultimately voted, 12-2, to accept the committee’s report. On Feb. 5, Burke was given 30 days to reach agreement with the city on a final contract.

Voting against Burke were Finn, who wanted the three finalists to form a coalition, and Ernani Bernardi, a notorious no-voter who wanted further assurance that the marathon would not cost the city money. Yaroslavsky was out of the country and did not vote.

Chriss defended his endorsement of Burke.

“They were far and away the best, so it was really no contest,” Chriss said. “Our endorsement was reaffirmed by the subcommittee, 5-0, and by the City Council, 12-2.”

Naturally, the council’s vote disappointed the losing bidders.

“This is a city that has had bad luck in marathons, and it turns over this one to a group that will learn as it goes,” said Jim Goulding, a member of Bedford’s group. “It’s clear that this is not a high priority item for the city. They have not done their homework.”

Observing from afar, two marathon experts drew the same conclusion.

“From what I understand, the level of naivete on the part of the city and the group they gave it to is remarkable,” said Bob Bright, director of America’s Marathon in Chicago.

Said John Brennand, technical director of the Olympic marathons: “I have no hope that this marathon will ever amount to anything.”

Julie Cart also contributed to this story.