CRA Head Is Subject of Probe : City Hall: Officials are looking into John Tuite’s handling of 2 public relations contracts. Bradley asks that Police Department also take a role in investigation.

At Mayor Tom Bradley’s request, city officials are exploring allegations that John Tuite, executive director of the Community Redevelopment Agency, mishandled two public relations contracts, it was learned Wednesday.

A question of bid-rigging has been raised in connection with one contract, officials said, adding that they also are attempting to determine whether Tuite paid a consultant public funds to promote his own image and that of his family.

A spokesman for Bradley said Wednesday that the mayor has asked the Los Angeles Police Department and City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie to investigate both matters. Tuite, the spokesman said, has been asked for an explanation.

“The mayor takes the allegations raised concerning Mr. Tuite very seriously,” the spokesman said.

Tuite, reached in Chicago where he had traveled to attend a daughter’s wedding, discounted the allegations and said he intends to give Bradley a full accounting next week.

“I think the matter is totally without merit,” said Tuite, who has been in the $136,000-a-year job since 1986.

Sources said a “whistle-blower” brought the allegations to the mayor’s office last week. Bradley aides summoned Tuite and another CRA official to a meeting to discuss the matter.

James Wood, the board chairman of the powerful public agency that Tuite directs, said Wednesday he was confident that Tuite had done nothing wrong. He said that he and other agency officials were in the process of preparing a response, also at the mayor’s request.

The CRA, with a budget of about $500 million a year, oversees an array of construction projects and was largely responsible for rebuilding downtown Los Angeles.

Comrie confirmed that the mayor referred the matter to him.

“The mayor,” the city administrative officer said Wednesday, “referred it over yesterday. We have been asked to review some allegations concerning John Tuite and some public relations contracts.”

At issue are contracts with two public relations firms, the Lippin Group and J. B. Duff & Co. The publicists were hired even though the CRA employs a full-time public relations staff of three.

According to sources involved in the inquiry, one question is whether Duff & Co. was hired without competitive bidding and whether agency documents falsely reflect that two other people bid unsuccessfully for the job.

Jane Duff, head of J. B. Duff & Co, has held two contracts with the CRA since 1988 totaling almost $50,000, according to CRA records. She is paid $95 an hour plus expenses for public relations work.

“It’s going to take some time to unravel whether those two people were contacted,” Wood said.

One of the two bidders listed was Mark Firelli, at the time a free-lance public relations consultant, according to CRA documents obtained by The Times. However, Firelli told The Times on Wednesday that he never bid on any CRA contracts. He added that he telephoned the CRA once about two years ago and requested some material on the agency’s bidding procedure, but never received it.

Duff was selected “based on her known quality of performance and her knowledge of the redevelopment process,” CRA documents said.

Attempts to reach Duff for comment were unsuccessful.

A January, 1989, work summary by Duff details the efforts she made to promote both Tuite and the CRA.

One entry reads: “Interview Tuites to develop media pitch for personal/professional profile.” The entry discussed efforts to interest the Los Angeles Times in articles about Tuite. But the report also discussed efforts by Duff to encourage stories in various newspapers on the CRA’s work with homeless and elderly people.

“The question with Duff,” said Wood, “has to do with how she was picked and with the scope of her work. Was her work related to Tuite or to the agency?”

Commenting on Duff’s efforts to persuade newspapers to write stories about him, Tuite said, “a personal profile of a head of an agency is not unusual.”

Tuite, however, did not respond directly to questions about whether other bids were solicited in the Duff matter, but said he would “look into it” when he returns to Los Angeles.

Regarding the Lippin contract, officials are looking into an allegation that a $25,000 contract was backdated in May to pay for prior work that began in March without agency approval.

Agency records indicate that the firm’s head, Richard Lippin, is to be paid $250 an hour plus expenses for speech writing and consultation about the agency’s image. An associate in the firm is to be paid $125 an hour.

In a memorandum dated May 21, Tuite stated that he authorized the contract without soliciting bids because there was no time to request them. In March, Tuite wrote, he had an “immediate need for assistance” in writing a speech he was to present to the Los Angeles Headquarters Assn. A version prepared by the CRA staff “was not adequate,” the memo said.

In the May memo, Tuite described the Lippin Group as “uniquely qualified” to communicate CRA concerns “in a more clear and positive manner.”

Lippin said Wednesday that thus far, his firm has billed the CRA for $5,000 in public relations work that officially started on March 1. He said he had no knowledge of any possible backdating of his contract.

The firm has no other government clients, Lippin said, but does work in the social, community and cultural fields. He said that billing $250 an hour is not uncommon for the principal of a public relations firm.

Tuite said Wednesday that he had not ordered the contract backdated and that no improper actions were taken.

“There was payment made for services rendered, which is proper,” Tuite said. “The paper work took longer than anticipated, but certainly they earned the money.”

Asked why Lippin was granted a $250-an-hour contract without the solicitation of other bids, Tuite said, “I sought some of the best assistance we could get at a time in which we were in need of that assistance.

“I have authority to authorize contracts of a certain amount and I believe I operated within those limits,” Tuite said.