Dramatic Testimony Fails to Resolve Bradley Affair

A Los Angeles City Council committee on Friday concluded a week of high drama and sensational testimony but moved no closer to resolving an issue that for months has dominated this city’s politics: Did Mayor Tom Bradley exert improper influence to assist a bank that had paid him a consulting fee?

During five days of extraordinary public hearings, the council’s Finance and Revenue Committee summoned some of the city’s top financial officials--including Treasurer Leonard Rittenberg--to answer allegations leveled by city auditors that they had doctored documents to cover up the circumstances surrounding a deposit of tax funds in Far East National Bank.

The underlying thrust of the hearings was to determine whether the document was falsified to conceal that $2 million had been deposited in Far East National Bank at the mayor’s direction.

Bradley has steadfastly maintained that he did not exert any influence on behalf of the bank, which last year paid him $18,000 in advisory fees. Bradley has said that after learning the city was doing business with Far East, he returned the money and resigned his position.

No evidence surfaced during the high-visibility hearings that directly contradicted his account or implicated him in the cover-up. But questions were raised.

On one treasurer’s office document, a reference to the deposit being made “per the mayor” was blotted out with white correction ink and the names of other banks were listed on it to give a false impression that the deposit occurred through a mandated competitive bidding procedure.

Committee members Zev Yaroslavsky and Richard Alatorre said Friday that the hearings did reveal that a cover-up occurred in the treasurer’s office but failed to establish a motive--in effect, raising more questions than they answered.

“I know there are people who have come before this committee and have lied, that’s for sure,” Alatorre said. “And I don’t know who is telling the truth at the present time, because everybody pretty much has a different version of some of the major concerns to this committee.”

Said Yaroslavsky: “The whole thing smells funny, but we don’t know where the odor is coming from. We know that there was a cover-up in the treasurer’s office. We don’t know why.”

Bradley’s aides have suggested that treasurer’s office officials may have simply overreacted to an inquiry the mayor made on March 22 to Rittenberg about the status of Far East’s account with the city, interpreting it as an order to deposit money.

Yaroslavsky on Friday said that is not implausible.

“I think the obvious tendency is for people to try to please their boss,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there was a corrupt intent--doesn’t mean there wasn’t. I don’t think we have any way of coming to that kind of a conclusion based on what we’ve heard this week.”

What the committee said it did learn with certainty from the testimony is that there is so much squabbling and bad blood among top treasurer’s officials, who pointed accusatory fingers at each other during the hearings, that the prudent investment of taxpayer funds is being jeopardized.

“A snake pit” is how Yaroslavsky described the office that manages about $2 billion in public funds.

As its only legislative act, the committee on Friday passed a motion stating that “it is imperative” for the city to obtain an outside investment or accounting firm to help the treasurer’s office fulfill its duties.

Yaroslavsky also called on his council colleagues to hire “professional” help to help them conduct a sweeping review of not only the mayor’s conduct but of departments throughout the city.

“The council has got to decide where it wants to go now,” he said. “They know a lot of things now they didn’t know when they walked into this building on Monday morning. . . . If this hasn’t troubled the City Council members, I don’t know what will.”

Meanwhile, City Council member Joan Milke Flores on Friday introduced a motion that would consolidate the numerous ongoing investigations into one “super-committee”

She said there are probably six different council committees or city agencies now conducting investigations and “each is off trying to do their own thing” in a “kind of frenzy.”

IN TREASURER’S OFFICE-- Testimony has not painted a pretty picture of the city treasurer’s office. Part II, Page 1.