Commissioners Are Notified of Ethics Rules : Law: City attorney routinely sends letters stating conflict-of-interest rules. Appointees say they are not adequately briefed by the city attorney, Bradley Administration or campaign officials.

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office routinely sends letters to new city commissioners alerting them to state and local conflict-of-interest laws.

The state Political Reform Act, among other things, “prohibits members of . . . boards from soliciting or receiving political contributions from persons having business before (them),” commissioners are told. “And (the law) prohibits actions on matters affecting contributors.”

These letters, sent for at least the last 10 years, stress that the law is complex and commissioners should seek additional guidance as questions arise.

The letters have not discouraged several commissioners from hosting Bradley fund-raisers in recent years while also sitting in judgment on matters affecting the lobbyists, contractors and other special interests who contributed, The Times found.

Commissioners interviewed by The Times complained that the conflict-of-interest laws are confusing and that they were not adequately advised by the city attorney. Nor did they receive guidance from the Bradley Administration or campaign officials, they said.

“I would guarantee hardly any commissioner knows anything about” the requirements of the law limiting commissioner fund-raising, said attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. He is an airport commissioner who hosted a Bradley campaign event in 1988 that raised money from firms and individuals with business ties to the airport.

Dan Garcia, Bradley’s former top planning appointee and now a member of the city Police Commission, hosted a fund-raiser at his home in 1986 that raised money from lobbyists and developers who had matters before his panel.

Saying he was not fully aware of the potential legal conflicts, Garcia complained that the city attorney gives vague advice. “They’d send out the law--the whole act--and I don’t know what the hell it means,” said Garcia, a lawyer. “I’ve got plenty of other things to do.”

Ignorance of the law is not always a sufficient defense--as Bradley and Los Angeles Councilman Michael Woo recently learned. The state Fair Political Practices Commission earlier this year fined Bradley and Woo $2,000 each for participating in decisions involving contributors’ contracts while the two served on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. The fines were imposed even though the FPPC agreed that Bradley and Woo acted unintentionally.

Willful violations of the restrictions on commissioner fund-raising can lead to penalties of $10,000 and criminal charges, according to an FPPC spokesman.

Some Bradley commissioners have studiously avoided fund-raising. “That’s not what I was put on the commission for,” said former airport commissioner Jerry B. Epstein. “Our role (was) to make the traveling individual as comfortable . . . as possible.”

At least one Bradley appointee, Building Advisory Appeals Board member Robert B. Burke, said for the sake of appearance he does not even personally contribute to the mayor’s campaigns.

Burke, Garcia and a few others said an outright ban on fund-raising by political appointees would be preferable to current laws, which they said are confusing.