L.B. Councilman Pays Off His Telephone Bill

Councilman Warren Harwood has returned almost $1,000 to the city for personal telephone calls that he had billed to taxpayers.

In recent weeks, Harwood has given the city three checks: $288.03 for calls that he charged during fiscal 1986-87, $315.49 for 1987-88 and $393.09 for the current accounting year, which began in July.

A Times’ story last month reported that for years Harwood’s city-paid phone bills averaged about $500 a month--at least 10 times more than most of his council colleagues.

At that time, Harwood acknowledged that he had charged some personal calls to taxpayers and said he intended to return the money. Harwood said he and his wife had inadvertently made the calls on a city-paid telephone line in their home.

“I was not doing a good bookkeeping job,” he said recently.

Questions from Colleagues

Some of his council colleagues also questioned why Harwood, who is employed by Los Angeles County, spent so much time conducting city business on the telephone while at work. The councilman made hundreds of city-business calls each month, mostly from his county office, and submitted the bills to the city for reimbursement. On some days, his calls from work took up more than two hours, records show.

Harwood, an administrative projects coordinator for the H. Claude Hudson Comprehensive Health Center, defended the practice, saying that he places the calls during his lunch hour and 15-minute breaks or makes up the time by skipping breaks and working late. City expense records cannot verify that because Harwood whited-out the column on his phone bill showing the exact time each call was placed. He said he routinely whites-out the calling times so no one can look at the bill--on file at City Hall as a public record--and figure out when he is away from his wife and two children.

Vice Mayor Wallace Edgerton, Harwood’s most vocal critic on the council, said: “For him to say he does it to protect his family is one of the most absurd things I’ve heard.

“He’s falsifying (his county job) time cards at the taxpayers’ expense and that’s the whole point of the concern.”

But Harwood’s county supervisors said they are satisfied that he is no longer making personal or city-related calls during work hours. Harwood said he now makes such calls from pay telephones in his building.

‘Corrected His Problem’

“At this point, Warren has corrected his problem,” said Tony Rodgers, the health center’s administrator. “We allow a reasonable number of personal calls. As far as we can tell, he’s complying.”

Harwood defends his heavy use of the telephone by pointing out that his overall city office expenses are the lowest of any council member. Describing himself as a hands-on administrator, Harwood said he can get more done by calling constituents and others himself. In turn, many of his constituents say he is very accessible and responsive to their needs.

Harwood, a second-term councilman facing reelection in 1990, blames Edgerton and other political opponents for latching onto the phone controversy in an attempt to embarrass him.

Edgerton concedes he does not get along with Harwood, but he said, “I didn’t make the phone calls. He did.”

‘Hidden in Budget’

Edgerton also claims that until this year, Harwood’s high phone bills were “hidden in the mayor’s budget.” Until this July, Harwood’s phone expenses were paid through the mayor and council’s budget instead of through his own district budget, but Mayor Ernie Kell said the bills were not hidden. “At that time, he didn’t have sufficient money in his budget, as I recall,” Kell said. Councilman Evan Anderson Braude’s phone bills, which rank as the second-most expensive of the council members, also were paid through the mayor and council’s budget until this year. Said Kell: “It came out of the same pocket in the end.”

Kell said he asked Harwood and Braude to begin paying phone expenses out of their own district office budgets beginning with this fiscal year. Kell said he asked for the change after reviewing his office budget upon being elected full-time mayor earlier this summer.

Councilman Ray Grabinski has also said that he has inadvertently billed City Hall for a small number of personal calls. Aide Jeanne Wagner said that Grabinski last week returned to the city $1.69.