Woo to Call for Investigation of Brookins TV Deal

City Councilman Michael Woo said he will call for an investigation today into the city’s award of a cable television contract to Bishop H. H. Brookins and other black community leaders without requiring that they invest or participate in the business.

Woo said Monday he was “alarmed” by revelations in a Times report that Brookins and other influential community leaders were given a 20% share in the lucrative cable franchise for South-Central Los Angeles. The franchise is worth at least $50 million, according to cable industry analysts.

“It’s another case of a person who happens to be well-connected politically getting a city contract,” Woo said.

Councilman Marvin Braude called the cable deal “intolerable” and said he will push for a centralized monitoring unit to review all future city contracts granted to minority- and women-owned firms.

Woo and Braude made their remarks Monday after a Government Operations Committee hearing into a controversial airport contract that city auditors say has paid $7.3 million in profits to Brookins and other minority partners for doing little or no work.

Airport officials admitted they were not aware of problems with the food and beverage concession contracts granted under the city’s minority business program until stories appeared in The Times 10 months ago.

“We failed to adequately monitor the contracts and assumed that they would be carried out as we understood the details of the original proposal,” said Executive Director Clifton A. Moore.

Monday’s hearing was the first of several meetings scheduled this week to determine how Brookins received three city contracts with the help of Mayor Tom Bradley’s Administration.

Woo said he will ask the city’s chief administrative officer at today’s council session to investigate the cable deal. On Wednesday, the council’s Community and Economic Development Committee will review a city report explaining how Brookins allegedly disguised his ownership of a run-down office complex in Southwest Los Angeles in order to receive a $336,000 loan of federal poverty funds. On Thursday, Woo’s operations committee will continue its hearings into the airport contract.

The Times reported on Sunday that Brookins is among a group of influential black community leaders with political connections who were offered shares of a cable franchise in 1983. Three black businessmen have been involved in a lengthy legal battle with the city over their claim that they lost the cable contract because they refused to follow advice by Bradley and a top aide, William Elkins, to merge with Brookins and other community leaders.

Bradley and Elkins have denied that they improperly influenced the awarding of the cable contract. They said they only wanted community leaders to participate in the franchise.

Among the cable partners listed in the city contract are Brookins and his African Methodist Episcopal Church; Danny Bakewell and his Brotherhood Crusade; the Rev. Thomas Kilgore, E.V. Hill and the Baptist Ministers Conference of Watts and South-Central Los Angeles; Ted Watkins, head of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, and Channing Johnson, a former aide to Councilman Robert Farrell.

But the AME Church has no records of the investment and the Baptist ministers group does not exist, church officials said.

Watkins said Monday that his group has not received its share of the franchise.

“If these are the facts, I’d better get a lawyer,” Watkins said. “What’s happened to what we had obligated to us under the contract?”

Brookins and his partners were paid $500,000 and given a $2-million loan in 1987 by a cable operator who acquired rights to the South-Central franchise, according to confidential documents obtained by The Times. The city has no record of financial details.

Several partners said the minority shareholders were supposed to represent the community’s interests by sitting on a board of directors and by participating in the operations and programming of the cable system. But the group has had no input, cable officials said, and South-Central was the last area of the city to receive cable service, beginning in 1988.

“The losers are the people who live in the South-Central cable franchise (area),” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. “It’s no longer a surprise to me to see that the business has been awarded to a small circle of people over and over again. Why isn’t the business being spread around to other people? Bishop Brookins isn’t the only minority businessman in town. Why does his name keep cropping up?”

Councilmen attending Monday’s hearing into the airport contract pondered the same question.

“There has been a blatant, violent and disgusting abuse of the affirmative action program,” said Councilman Ernani Bernardi. “The program was intended to benefit people who are not able to compete, not people who are politically connected.”

Airport Commissioner Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. told the committee that it was unfair to criticize airport officials for picking the minority partners because the selection was made by the concessionaires without the knowledge of the commissioners.

“We tried very hard to carry out what we thought was a policy of fairness and to bring in people who do not have a chance,” Cochran said.

Among Brookins’ partners at the airport were the wife of House Ethics Committee Chairman Julian C. Dixon and John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League.

Woo said later that it was “straining credibility a bit” to believe that the airport commissioners did not know the names of the influential minorities who were put in the concession contracts.

“I’m trying to figure out how (the airport concessionaires) knew these were the individuals they should specifically get,” Woo said.

Moore told the committee that Brookins’ interest in the concession has been bought out and that minority partners at Ontario International Airport now are involved in the operations.

Despite the numerous city investigations into minority contracts, both Yaroslavsky and Bernardi said they doubt that the situation will be cleaned up any time soon.

“It has been going on for years and none of us has questioned it,” Bernardi said. “I’m concerned about what’s going on in city government. Look at Brookins’ involvement. It’s just the fat cats involved here and we’re going to whitewash this.”