‘Political Wimpishness’ and the Sylvia Cunliffe Case

In response to Ted Vollmer’s article quoting Sylvia Cunliffe’s lawyer Mark Beck (Metro, Dec. 4) as stating that his conflict-of-interest challenge mirrors “on all fours” the May, 1985, Superior Court ruling which stated that then-City Atty. Ira Reiner should not have turned evidence from the investigation of Calvin Hamilton, then planning director, over to the county grand jury is entirely erroneous.

Beck states that his client’s case mirrors the Hamilton case “on all fours,” a rather obscure expression which I assume must means “on all points.” In fact, these cases are not even similar on any one point.

I went to the city attorney’s office and presented my plans for a nonprofit group to implement policies of the city for better trade and tourism and requested the city attorney’s office to give me a legal opinion as to whether or not my involvement with that nonprofit corporation might be a conflict of interest with my position as the planning director. I did not receive a ruling and assumed that what I was doing was appropriate. I was quite specific in my request and this is why the ruling was made that the city attorney’s action was a violation of the Code of Ethics and that a lawyer-client relationship did indeed exist.

I doubt very much that Cunliffe went to the city attorney’s office and asked for a legal opinion as to whether or not she could release to the public the police record of one of her employees.

There are other important differences: I chose to retire of my own free will. I chose the time and date and gave the city adequate notice so that a qualified replacement could be found. I was not forced to retire, nor did the City Council have to cook up some kind of deal or compromise. As a matter of fact, in City Council sessions, the issue of firing me over an error in judgment never really came up.

It would behoove Beck to carefully review that case before he even dreams of comparing my case to that of his client’s. They are not only completely dissimilar, I believe the issues are not even comparable and I strongly resent even the slightest implication that they are.

CALVIN S. HAMILTON

Retired L.A. Planning Director

Los Angeles