Concern Arises Over Flores Aide Holding Chamber Post

Dial 212-6300 and you get Niki Tennant, manager of the Harbor City/Harbor Gateway Chamber of Commerce.

Dial 548-7664 and you may well get Niki Tennant, part-time aide to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores.

Tennant, the chamber official, and Tennant, the Flores aide, are one and the same. For the past month, she has worked for both out of a one-room Harbor Gateway office rented for Flores by the City of Los Angeles.

“I think it is the best of both worlds,” Flores said. “It is a way that we can have someone there to answer our phones when the deputy is out . . . and it helps the chamber have someone available all the time.”

Flores said the office- and employee-sharing arrangements pose no conflict of interest for the councilwoman or the Chamber of Commerce.

“The chamber is more than just a business-type organization, it is very community-minded,” Flores said. “I think most residents appreciate that fact. We really haven’t had any issues where the residents and the businesses have been on the opposite side of a question.”

But Rochelle Bullock, a member of the Harbor Gateway/Torrance Community Council, a residents group, said the arrangement appears to align Flores with business--not residential--interests.

“I don’t see how the Harbor City chamber could help us,” Bullock said. “I don’t think the city should be sharing quarters with a chamber. It doesn’t seem right. It seems like a free ride to me.”

Joeann Valle, president of the Harbor City Coordinating Council, a residents group in Harbor City, said suspicions about the arrangement, while not surprising, are unfounded.

“Niki has a great deal of integrity and a real understanding of the community,” Valle said. “When she is working for the chamber, she is wearing one hat. When she is working for the councilwoman, she will be wearing another hat. . . . If it was someone else who didn’t have what Niki has, then I would say this may not be such a hot idea.”

Tennant volunteered for the chamber when it was located at Bay Harbor Hospital in Harbor City, where she worked in public relations. When the chamber moved out of the hospital in April to gain greater visibility and independence, Tennant moved with it, becoming a part-time paid employee.

The chamber set up temporary quarters at Frank Coletto Ford and Isuzu in Harbor City while it negotiated a deal to move into Flores’ office. Under the agreement, the chamber pays no rent for the office but pays Tennant’s wages three days a week. Flores pays Tennant the other two days and also picks up the $500 monthly rent.

‘Ideal Arrangement’

“I think it is an ideal arrangement,” said Dan Sullivan, president of the chamber, which has added Harbor Gateway to its name since moving to the new office. “It will give the business community an immediate communication vehicle to the city and the councilwoman.”

Sullivan said the chamber, a nonprofit organization with about 150 members, could not afford to rent an office of its own. The organization did not pay rent for its office at Bay Harbor Hospital or the car dealership.

As a Flores aide, Tennant answers the phone when Tad Isomoto, Flores’ deputy for Harbor City and Harbor Gateway, is neither at the Harbor Gateway field office nor at his main office in the San Pedro Municipal Building. Tennant also answers questions when residents visit the office, performs clerical and other tasks for Isomoto and represents him at meetings and other events on Wednesdays, his day off.

As manager of the chamber, Tennant is the organization’s only paid employee. She organizes chamber-sponsored events, such as a recent fishing derby at Harbor Lake, answers questions for members, recruits new members and provides day-to-day services for the local business community.

Open Five Days Now

Before Tennant moved into Flores’ office it had been closed most of the week, opening only Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Under the new arrangement, the office is open Monday through Friday for both council and chamber business.

“I notice we are getting more walk-in business,” said Flores aide Isomoto. “Someone being present really helps. If you were to come to an office and see it black and dark, the tendency is not to return.”

Conflicts have arisen between chambers and residents in other communities in Flores’ district. In San Pedro, for example, residents criticized the San Pedro Peninsula Chamber of Commerce for its proposal to redevelop the Rancho San Pedro public housing project.

Isomoto said Flores will reevaluate the office-sharing arrangement in Harbor Gateway if relations between residents and the chamber there take a turn for the worse.

“If it gets too uncomfortable, then there will have to be a decision as to what to do,” Isomoto said. “But right now, our goals are the same in that we are both concerned about the betterment of the community.”

Tennant said she has not received any complaints about the new arrangement, which she said presents her with no particular dilemma.

“As a paid staff person, I don’t have any say in making policy for the chamber,” Tennant said. “I don’t make policy, I just carry it out. . . . This area is so desperate for attention, actually I think everyone feels it is a godsend that there is even a chamber here and someone is being responsive to them.”

Guy Seegal, property manager for the city’s General Services Department, said it is not uncommon for the city to provide unused office space to nonprofit organizations rent-free. Although he said he did not know of a case in which a council member shared an office with a private agency, he said such a situation would not surprise him.

“The intention of leasing the field office is to serve the community,” Seegal said. “If the councilmanic district felt that the use served the community, then it would serve the intent of the lease.”