City Hall Contacts : Ex-Bradley Aides Cash In on Influence

Former Deputy Mayor Tom Houston had a favor to ask of his old boss.

Houston, now a lobbyist, wanted to introduce a client to Mayor Tom Bradley and discuss a multimillion-dollar proposal to manage the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum complex. Bradley said he gladly granted the request to his former chief of staff.

At 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 17, Houston ushered Ed Snider, the president of Philadelphia-based Spectacor Management, into the mayor’s wood-paneled office on the third floor of City Hall. On June 1, the nine-member Coliseum Commission--with the strong backing of Bradley’s three appointees--approved a joint bid by Spectacor and MCA’s Music Entertainment Group to manage the Coliseum for the next five years.

$60,000 in Fees

Houston, who resigned as the mayor’s chief of staff last June, said he will receive an estimated $60,000 in fees for representing MCA-Spectacor in the deal.

His appearance in the mayor’s office did not violate any laws, because Los Angeles does not have a statute like the federal Ethics in Government Act that, for example, was used to convict former Reagan Administration official Lyn Nofziger of illegal lobbying at the White House.

But it does raise questions of favoritism and conflict of interest and illustrates the way in which Bradley has allowed former aides to turn their relationship with the mayor into lucrative consulting and lobbying jobs.

The Times learned of the Bradley meeting with Houston and his client by obtaining the mayor’s 1987 appointment calendar through the California Public Records Act. The thousands of entries in the calendar, which the mayor and his staff had kept private during the last 15 years in office, provide for the first time an hour-by-hour account of Bradley’s official activities. The Times’ study of the 476-page calendar, together with more than 100 interviews, discloses who gets to see the mayor and who does not, why Bradley devotes hundreds of hours each year to ceremonial events and how he spends his day governing the nation’s second-largest city.

The schedule shows that Bradley met last year with nine former advisers who earn substantial fees as lobbyists, lawyers and private consultants. The mayor allowed seven of these advisers, who are registered as City Hall lobbyists, to schedule a total of 18 appointments last year.

In all, 20 registered lobbyists met with the mayor a total of 38 times in 1987, according to Bradley’s calendar. Impromptu meetings, telephone conversations and other occasions when lobbyists talk to Bradley are not included in the schedule. Bradley declined to provide The Times his schedule of personal appointments or records of telephone messages.

Three of the mayor’s past associates, Houston, Maureen Kindel and Frances Savitch, held key posts in the Bradley Administration before resigning last year within a span of four months. Today, they bring to their new firms political influence and an extensive network of contacts within city government--both highly valued commodities in the lobbying business.

Houston, the most active lobbyist of the former Bradley aides, routinely has consulted the mayor on behalf of at least three clients vying for millions of dollars in government contracts. Kindel, who awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in city contracts as the mayor’s appointed president of the Board of Public Works, now commands lobbying fees of $200 per hour, about twice the going rate in Los Angeles. Savitch, a Bradley confidante of 14 years, has produced the mayor for clients at promotional events. She also represents a developer competing for a $200-million city project that requires Bradley’s approval.

Intent Acknowledged

After resigning last year as Bradley’s longtime executive assistant, Savitch promptly went into the public relations and private consulting business. In an interview, she candidly acknowledged her intention to capitalize on her access to the mayor and other city officials.

“All I can do is to try to translate into an economic benefit my relationships at City Hall and my knowledge of the system. That’s my value,” Savitch said. “My relationship with the mayor and members of the council and, hopefully, some of the (city) department people is all I have to offer.”

Bradley said he “resents” suggestions that his decisions could be influenced by former staff members. He maintained that his personal or professional association with any lobbyist does not affect his ability to fairly evaluate proposals.

“There are people who may represent a particular interest group or company (and) they’ve got an idea that is of value to the city and they bring them in,” Bradley said in an interview. “I would welcome them. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care whether I never saw them or knew them before in my life. I certainly would not preclude (seeing) someone just because he or she may have formerly worked in this office.”

Clear Benefits

For Houston in particular, Bradley’s “welcome” policy has had clear benefits. And, even though both Houston and Bradley have pushed aggressively for reform of city lobbying regulations, Houston’s appearances as a paid lobbyist in the mayor’s office raise conflict-of-interest questions, in the view of legal experts.

Houston would never face prosecution for his lobbying activities due to the vague wording of the current city statute, these government lawyers said. The city’s conflict-of-interest laws, in fact, have not led to a single case for prosecution.

Whereas the federal statute prohibits former aides from lobbying their past departments for one year on any issue, the local law bars lobbying by ex-officials for one year, but only on matters in which they “exercised any responsibility” as a government aide. The city code also prevents former government officials from representing a firm at any time on matters that they “personally and substantially” participated in as city employees.

‘Poorly Worded Statute’

“It appears that it is kind of a poorly worded statute and it’s difficult to bring somebody under it,” said City Atty. James K. Hahn, who favors toughening the city laws. “I think the idea of people walking out of City Hall one day and coming back the next day lobbying on any matter . . . raises a question in the public’s mind.”

According to one expert on conflict-of-interest law, Houston on at least one occasion last year engaged in lobbying activities that the city statute was supposed to prevent. This occurred when Houston, as a paid lobbyist for Applied Recovery Technologies Inc. of Virginia, pursued a city contract in an area of government that he had overseen in the mayor’s office, said the city prosecutor, who asked not to be identified.

As the deputy mayor in charge of environmental concerns, Houston was deeply involved in the city’s efforts to find ways to dispose of sewage other than by dumping it into Santa Monica Bay. Later, as a lobbyist, Houston sought a $6-million contract for Applied Recovery Technologies to ship treated Los Angeles sludge to Guatemala. The Virginia-based firm first brought its sludge-to-Guatemala proposal to the city in January of last year; Houston did not leave the mayor’s office until six months later.

Bradley agreed to meet with Houston on at least two occasions last year to discuss the Applied Recovery Technologies project. The second meeting, on Sept. 10, included Padilla Vidaure, the Guatemalan ambassador to the United States.

Reservations Expressed

Bradley earlier expressed serious reservations about the sludge proposal, but he agreed to support it after the meetings in his office with Houston and other city officials. Although the Guatemalan government backed out of the deal, Bradley said he based his decision on merit and not on Houston’s arguments on behalf of his client. Houston denied having any “memory of ever being involved in any discussions concerning ART’s specific proposal or any proposal concerning the shipment of sludge to foreign countries” while serving as Bradley’s top aide. He said he worked nearly full time during his last six months as deputy mayor searching for a job in private industry.

However, both Bradley and Delwin Biagi, head of the city Bureau of Sanitation, have different recollections.

Bradley said that while Houston was looking for work in private industry, he “was fully involved in carrying out his assignment as deputy mayor” until he resigned last June.

‘Mayor’s Right-Hand Man’

Biagi recalled that Houston participated in meetings on the Applied Recovery Technologies plan. “The mayor’s office was certainly well aware of everything that was going on,” he said. “We looked to Tom . . . as basically the mayor’s right-hand man, if you will, on that particular issue.”

Since he joined the large Los Angeles law firm of Lewis, D’Amato, Brisbois & Bisgaard after three years as the mayor’s top deputy, Houston, 42, has solicited Bradley’s support on behalf of at least two other clients, one of them the MCA-Spectacor partnership that was awarded the contract to operate the Coliseum.

Houston said he knew that MCA Inc. was interested in managing the Coliseum because Irving Azoff, chief of MCA’s Music Entertainment Group, had approached him with the idea when he worked inside the mayor’s office. At Houston’s urging shortly after he became a lobbyist, MCA formed a partnership with Spectacor. By representing MCA-Spectacor, Houston said, he is helping Bradley bring about the private management plan for the Coliseum that the mayor initially suggested.

Nofziger Case Cited

Houston’s lobbying activities for MCA-Spectacor are “sort of analogous to that which Mr. Lyn Nofziger is getting beaten about the head,” said Pete Schabarum, a Coliseum commissioner and a Republican county supervisor.

“What bothers me is whether or not the mayor . . . (was) persuaded to accept less than a reasonable deal,” he said. “There are a lot of good lawyers in town who didn’t use to work for the mayor and who could probably do as good a job or better negotiating a deal of this kind for MCA-Spectacor than Houston.”

At the commission’s June 1 meeting, Schabarum cast the swing vote that blocked MCA-Spectacor from winning a more comprehensive and lucrative 10-year management contract.

Bradley, noting that Schabarum “is no political friend of mine,” challenged the supervisor to “prove what he is saying. There is not a . . . shred of truth in it.”

Houston said that his activities are no different from any other attorney who appears in the mayor’s office on behalf of a client.

‘Very High Standards’

“I’m not exerting influence or pressure or anything close to that,” Houston said. “I’m going to (represent clients) as long as it complies with the law. Everybody has got to deal with themselves, and I don’t have any doubt about this ethically or anything else. I’m not worried what other people are thinking about it. What counts is what I think about it and the standards I’ve set. And I’ve set very high standards.”

In the case of Bert Construction Co. Inc., however, Houston sought special treatment from Bradley and other city officials, according to City Hall sources. The firm’s president, Mike Russo, paid Houston an initial $3,000 lobbying fee to persuade city officials to award his company exclusive rights to build new houses on vacant city land in San Pedro and split the profits. (The land is administered by the city Recreation and Parks Department.)

“I just figured (Houston) probably knows what the hell is going on with the city and he might be able to prod them loose,” Russo said.

Houston pushed Russo’s plan in talks with Recreation and Parks Director James Hadaway, Parks Commissioner Richard Riordan and Assistant City Attys. Edward Dygert and Pedro Echeverria. Both lawyers said they advised Hadaway that the city could not grant Bert Construction exclusive development rights without inviting other builders to submit bids.

‘Detrimental Effect on Me”

At least one city official who was approached for the Russo business criticized Houston’s lobbying tactics. “The fact that he mentioned it (in a private setting) had a detrimental effect on me,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. “I figured there is an angle. . . . If people can’t win something on the merits and they need this kind of influence, then maybe it is not a good deal for the city.”

Once it became evident that these city officials would not cooperate with his client, Houston took Bert’s case directly to the mayor. Bradley said he recommended the proposal to Hadaway as a project that seemed worth pursuing. But Hadaway refused to cooperate with Houston’s client and the deal fell through. Hadaway said he was “very uncomfortable” about entering into exclusive negotiations over a piece of property without inviting other developers to participate.

Houston said his client is now willing to compete with other builders for the pending proposal.

In contrast to Houston’s highly visible lobbying activities, Savitch and Kindel have established their consulting practices without attracting much attention or controversy. Both are still active in Bradley’s political affairs: Savitch said she will work in the mayor’s upcoming reelection campaign and Kindel remains in charge of raising millions of dollars in contributions.

‘Behind-the-Scenes’ Lobbying

Savitch, 58, said she has concentrated on public relations work and “behind-the-scenes” lobbying since becoming a partner last summer in the Boonshaft-Lewis & Savitch consulting firm. It has produced Bradley at events for three clients, including one that paid her an estimated $15,000 fee.

Since she became a paid consultant, Savitch acknowledged in an interview that she has contacted city officials on matters that could pose a conflict under the city’s law.

“I want to be very careful,” Savitch said. “It’s hard sometimes because people will call you and they will say: ‘I’ve got a problem. Do you think you could talk to the mayor or do you think you could talk to (Councilmen Gilbert) Lindsay or John Ferraro?’ ”

Often, Savitch said, she obliges the caller, but not before explaining how much her services will cost.

“I’ve caught myself a couple of times and I may have made one or two calls and thought about it afterwards, ‘Hey, I hope nobody knows about that because I could get into some trouble.’ ”

Huge Government Contract

When pressed for details by a reporter, Savitch later backed off the subject and said that upon reconsideration she doubted that the discussions took place.

Savitch’s clients include Barker Interests Ltd., one of four developers bidding for a huge government contract to build an expansion of the Los Angeles Civic Center on 7.8 acres of city-owned property. The firm that develops the $200-million Community Redevelopment Agency project will be chosen by the City Council and Bradley. As an executive assistant to the mayor, Savitch served as Bradley’s liaison to the CRA.

Savitch said she has not made any personal appearances at City Hall on behalf of the Barker firm or any other client. Instead, she said, she is providing Barker “information,” such as a list of key city officials to contact.

Client List Refused

The company’s co-managing partner, Michael Barker, was reluctant to discuss Savitch’s role. “I would not put us in a category of a regular client,” Barker said. “I’d really rather not go into it. I don’t think that it is anybody’s business.”

Kindel, 50, refused to identify her clients for publication because they “do not want to read their names in the newspaper,” she said.

The Times learned that Kindel’s clients include Herzog Contracting Corp., one of the major builders of the $750-million Los Angeles-to-Long Beach trolley line. Herzog, a family-owned, non-union firm based in Missouri, is being investigated by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission concerning allegations that company officials discriminated against several black employees. Bradley served as commission president last year and has two appointees on the 11-member board.

Kindel was hired several months ago as a consultant to help improve Herzog’s image and advise the company on how to better its relations, said Al Landes, a Herzog vice president. Kindel said her Herzog assignment involves no government lobbying.

In October, Kindel joined with longtime Sacramento lobbyist Christina Rose to provide lobbying services, steer controversial development projects through government bureaucracy and advise foreign investors on acquiring Los Angeles real estate. Kindel and Rose previously worked together for a large consulting firm in Los Angeles.

According to city records, Kindel reported receiving her “basic” $200-per-hour lobbying fee from Franklin Mint, a Pennsylvania firm that manufactures replicas of antique firearms, among other things. Kindel said she contacted a deputy city attorney to make certain that any legislation banning toy guns did not cover her client’s products. She also has pursued out-of-town business for Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall, a large Los Angeles engineering firm. This is the same company that in recent years won nearly $17 million in city public works contracts that were approved by Kindel when she was a city official.

Former Advisers

In all, nine former Bradley aides and advisers now in private practice appeared on the mayor’s appointment calendar last year, including registered City Hall lobbyists Houston; Kindel; Norman H. Emerson, who served as the mayor’s director of research; Warren Hollier, Bradley’s former Public Works board president; Elvin W. Moon, a former Building and Safety commissioner, and Cynthia M. Ryan, an attorney who has raised political funds for Bradley over the last two decades.

Former City Atty. Burt Pines, a close friend of Bradley’s and an active City Hall lobbyist, had breakfast on three occasions with the mayor in the last year. Pines, now a private attorney who supplemented his income last year by earning lobbying fees of $26,425 from 14 clients, said the conversations with Bradley included politics, personal matters and his clients. He declined to identify the clients or the issues he raised with the mayor.

These former advisers either accompanied their clients to Bradley’s office or appeared alone with the mayor to discuss matters such as development proposals and land-use issues. In these meetings, the mayor said, he listens attentively and often agrees to relay information to other city officials in an effort to cut red tape. Bradley said he routinely does the same for others who seek his help.

New Prohibition Urged

In any event, former staff members who recently quit to become paid lobbyists should be prohibited from taking their clients’ cases directly to the mayor, said Walter Zelman, executive director of California Common Cause.

“We think there ought to be . . . a period of time during which someone who worked in an agency is not allowed to lobby that same agency,” Zelman said.

A movement to reform lobbying laws nationwide has emerged since Nofziger recently was convicted of illegally lobbying his former White House colleagues and Michael K. Deaver, another former top aide to President Reagan, was found guilty of lying about similar practices to a grand jury and a congressional committee. A bill passed by the Senate in April would extend the one-year federal restriction to senators, representatives and senior congressional staff members.

In Sacramento, state Sen. Milton Marks (D-San Francisco) earlier this year introduced legislation similar to the federal statute that would prohibit former state officials from lobbying their old agencies for one year upon leaving office.

‘Loophole-Ridden Disgrace’

Bradley and Houston called on city lawmakers last year to pass new legislation that would aggressively enforce current lobbying regulations. Houston, a former chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, testified before the FPPC in December that the city’s lobbying laws are “a loophole-ridden disgrace.”

A year ago, Bradley attacked the city’s 21-year-old reporting laws for lobbyists as “weak, ineffective and out of date” and urged the City Council to enact tough, new controls. The proposal has languished in committee.

“You get a homeowners’ group that comes down here to fight a zone change,” Bradley said a year ago. “They see a lobbyist scurrying around. They immediately assume that somebody is trying to buy the vote of a council person, even though that may not be true. We want to eliminate that perception.”

When asked in an interview whether his recent meetings with Houston raised similar appearance problems, Bradley said, “Absolutely not.”

Lobbying Restrictions

Bradley nonetheless was concerned enough about potential lobbying violations that he directed his legal counsel, Mark Fabiani, to prepare memos and brief Houston, Savitch and Kindel on the city’s lobbying restrictions at the time they left City Hall. All three former Bradley advisers said they frequently turn down developers and businesses who request lobbying services that would pose a conflict.

The troika of Houston, Kindel and Savitch attracted headlines last year upon their leaving City Hall. Initially, their departures fueled speculation that they had deserted Bradley to use their influence in private practice while the mayor remained in office.

Savitch freely concedes that the connection is important to her. Predicting Bradley will win reelection next year, she said: “I certainly am not going to make this major change in my life (becoming a consultant) for something that I think is only going to be a year and a half that I’m going to benefit from. That makes no sense at all.”

Nearly Doubled Salary

Savitch estimated that she has nearly doubled her government salary of $63,461 since she left Bradley’s office last July. She said she expects to do “even better” beginning next month--a year after she departed City Hall--when she lobbies in person for clients on matters involving her government contacts and expertise.

Kindel, in an initial response to questions about her lobbying practice, acknowledged that clients seek her services in part because of her association with the mayor. She said that in certain cases she would raise an important issue with the mayor at a client’s request. But she adopted a much more rigid stance regarding her lobbying activities during a series of telephone interviews that ended with Kindel reading a prepared statement and thanking a reporter for “causing me to think about all this and put it into focus.”

Reading from the statement, Kindel said: “I have many close friends in government, including the mayor. However, I do not or would not sell my connections, or offer any special access. I have no interest whatsoever in going into the influence-peddling game. I offer my clients what I know and not who I know, and if clients want to employ me because of my talents, I welcome them. And if not, I’m not interested in their business.”

Houston and Savitch have not been so reluctant to tap their connections at City Hall.

In a recent interview regarding his involvement with a huge new shopping, hotel and office complex proposed for the Union Station area, Houston expressed an interest in representing a company that could bring his law firm substantial fees. Houston said he “would love to participate” as a private consultant in the Union Station project under study by the city, even though he had evaluated the same proposal as Bradley’s chief of staff. As deputy mayor, Houston represented Bradley on the matter and traveled to St. Louis at city expense to review a similar project by the Rouse Co.

Houston indicated no hesitations about reaping sizable financial rewards from the project. “There’s always hope down the road that some big sugar daddy (would) like to put the project together” in Los Angeles, Houston said. “I would love to talk to them. . . . If I could figure out a way to get paid for doing it, that would be great.”

Publicity Generated

Savitch has succeeded in generating tremendous publicity by producing Bradley at press conferences to promote two major clients, Environmental Products Co. and Chemfix Technologies Inc. At Savitch’s request, Bradley agreed to include Chemfix Technologies as part of a Jan. 12 pep talk to city employees at the Hyperion sewage treatment plant. Chemfix Technologies won an initial $3-million contract in December to process and dispose of the city’s sludge for six months.

Bradley praised Chemfix’s technology and described as “a miracle” the company’s sludge-conversion process, although questions remain about the use of the treated product. Savitch said she was grateful that Bradley singled out two top Chemfix officials and asked them to make speeches before local television crews.

“For the client, it was obviously great,” said Savitch, whose firm received about $15,000 for staging the press conference. “I guess the mayor felt maybe he was trying to do something nice for me.”

BRADLEY AIDES TURNED LOBBYISTS: THE BIG 3

TOM HOUSTON

Age: 42 Former position: Deputy Mayor, Chief of Staff City salary: $85,301 Length of service: 3 years (June 1984 - June 1987) Duties: Mayor’s top political adviser; managed staff of 100; carried out mayor’s major policy initiatives. Reason for leaving: “Every time I leave and practice (law) awhile I doit to generate some money sufficient enough so I can go back into public service. That’s my history. I’m sure that will continue throughout my life. I love government service.” New firm: Lewis, D’Amato, Brisbois and Bisgaard Position: Registered city lobbyist; attorney specializing in securities,environmental and land-use law Known clients: MCA-Spectacor Inc.; Bateman Eichler Hill Richards; Bert Construction Inc.; Applied Recovery Technologies Inc.; International Energy Development Known income: Reported $17,914 for six months of last year in lobbying fees, plus $60,000 fee from MCA-Spectacor Inc. MAUREEN KINDEL

Age: 50 Former position: President, Board of Public Works City salary: $62,566 Length of service: 8 years (April 1979-October 1987) Duties:Awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in city contracts, oversaw construction and maintenance of city streets and sewers, issued filming permits. Reason for leaving: “I had never really planned to stay in government more than three years when I came there. I stayed there for eight years--much, much longer than I expected because it was really enticing and I loved it. It was very expensive for me to do that. It was very, very hard for my family. I finally left because I had to earn more money.” New firm: Rose & Kindel Position: Registered city lobbyist, government affairs consultant Known clients: Refused to divulge client list. Known income: Reported $200 per hour lobbying fee. FRANCES SAVITCH

Age: 58 Former position: Executive Assistant to the Mayor City salary: $63,461

Length of service: 14 years (June 1973-July 1987) Duties: Key adviser in Bradley’s appointments to city boards and commissions; mayor’s chief City Council lobbyist; liaison to city Airport Commission and Community Redevelopment Agency. Reason for leaving: “Of course, the lure of making some big money. I want to have a boat and travel and wear clothes and we have two daughters and you want to give them things. So yeah, that’s part of it, but the challenge is part of it, too.” New firm: Boonshaft-Lewis & Savitch Position: Public relations, government affairs consultant and lobbyist. Known clients: Chemfix Technologies Inc., Environmental Products Co., Barker Interests Ltd., Matrix Equities Group, the Rev. Gene Scott. Known income: One client, Chemfix Technologies, reported paying up to $15,000 to Boonshaft-Lewis & Savitch to arrange one press conference. Has nearly doubled her goverment salary in less than one year. Source: City records and interviews Research: Cecilia Rasmussen

Times staff writer Rich Connell contributed to this story.