Biagi Recants Statement on Houston Role

A Los Angeles city official has recanted a statement that Tom Houston, while serving as deputy mayor, took part in meetings to consider a sewage disposal project by a private company that later hired Houston as a lobbyist.

The city official, Sanitation Bureau chief Delwin Biagi, was quoted in a June 12 article in The Times as saying that Houston was one of the city officials involved in the meetings, held to weigh the merits of the plan.

Shortly after Houston quit his post as deputy mayor in June, 1987, he lobbied Mayor Tom Bradley for the sludge-shipping contract on behalf of Applied Recovery Technology Inc., of Virginia.

The issue of Houston’s presence at the discussions is important because the law prohibits former city officials from lobbying on matters in which they played a significant role while employed as public servants.

Houston has denied taking part in the sludge-shipping meetings while he was a mayoral aide, and was so quoted in The Times article. Later, Houston said in a letter to The Times that as deputy mayor he not only played no part in the sludge-shipping meetings but was never informed that such meetings were taking place among other city officials.

Biagi said in an interview for The Times article that he recalled that during the time Houston was deputy mayor, Houston participated in meetings on the Applied Recovery Technology plan. In the same interview, he said, “We looked to Tom (Houston) . . . as basically the mayor’s right-hand man, if you will, on that particular issue.”

After the story was published, he gave a different account, both in a letter to The Times and in a telephone interview last week.

“Mr. Houston did not directly participate in those meetings, and it was not my intent to imply that he did.” Biagi said in his letter. He said he had made an “assumption” that Houston “was being briefed on our progress” toward reaching a sludge shipping agreement with Applied Recovery Technology. Ultimately, the deal was called off by the Guatemalan government.

In the later interview, Biagi told Times reporter Glenn Bunting, who wrote the article, that “I can’t say for sure. I don’t know that Tom Houston was ever in a meeting with anybody on the ART project as such.”

Asked to explain his earlier statements--made in two interviews--Biagi told Bunting: “That’s not at all what I intended to say. How the communication was missed I don’t know. I was making some assumptions. . . . I should not talk to someone such as yourself based on assumptions. That certainly was an improper thing for me to tell you.”