Senate Panel OKs Covitz, With Warning

Carl Covitz, Gov. Pete Wilson’s Cabinet secretary of business, transportation and housing, received a stern warning to shape up his agency’s performance Thursday, but still won unanimous approval for his confirmation from the Senate Rules Committee. Covitz had been expected to face a second day of tough questioning over his frequent use of California Highway Patrol officers and vehicles to transport him, as well as for a ride he and his family made aboard a government helicopter at a Hollywood parade saluting troops of Operation Desert Storm.

Instead, members of the Democratic-dominated committee skirted a stiff examination of Covitz, a former top official of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Reagan Administration, and settled for issuing warnings. He is expected to be confirmed by the full Senate late next week.

One committee source said Democrats decided against rejecting Covitz, or even roughing him up verbally, because they did not want to anger Wilson and risk inviting his veto of reapportionment plans for the Legislature, California members of Congress and state Board of Equalization.

“You can’t always pick the ripe time for confrontation,” the source said.

Covitz has been a Beverly Hills-based developer and was appointed by Wilson in January to head the state agency.

His use of CHP officers and patrol cars for transportation, often between his home and Los Angeles International Airport, and the flight aboard the helicopter May 19 drew heavy questioning from Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Franciso) at a committee hearing Wednesday. Kopp was expected to return Thursday but failed to attend.

Covitz maintained that his use of CHP drivers and vehicles, and the helicopter flight to make an aerial study of traffic congestion during the parade were in line with his official duties and did not constitute use of government resources for personal use.

Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), committee chairman, said questions surrounding Covitz’s use of the CHP and other issues raised during the hearings were not sufficient to cause him to vote against the confirmation. The committee approved Covitz 5 to 0, but Roberti said the full Senate would not act until late next week.

Citing the repeated use of CHP drivers, Roberti told Covitz he hoped that Covitz would rectify some “errors of judgment that sometimes senators make too.” He apparently referred to similar use of CHP drivers several years ago by Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana), who abandoned the practice.

Asked later by reporters if he intended to follow Roberti’s advice, Covitz said he did not believe the Senate leader’s remark was addressed to the CHP issue. He said he thought Roberti was referring to a separate issue of alleged lies told by transportation officials during the Deukmejian Administration.

That issue arose following passage of a controversial bill that paved the way for construction of experimental private toll roads in California. The bill won narrow approval of the Legislature, largely on the assurances of state officials and others that no taxpayer money would be involved in building toll roads.

After Gov. George Deukmejian signed it into law, however, some local governments earmarked local public funds for toll road purposes, touching off a furor among Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) and other toll road opponents. Lockyer said that even before the Legislature approved the bill, officials of the state Department of Transportation knew of plans to spend public funds from local sources for toll roads.

“We have been lied to consistently,” Lockyer told the Rules Committee on Thursday, saying that he opposed Covitz’s confirmation because Covitz supports toll roads. Covitz later said he backs giving local government the authorization to use public funds for such roads in conjunction with private funds if there is no other way of financing the projects.

Roberti bluntly warned Covitz that the Department of Transportation’s budget might be jeopardized if there was further “misleading” of the Legislature by the department.

“I think the Caltrans budget has to be linked to Caltrans’ veracity,” Roberti said.

Covitz told reporters outside the hearing room that “as much as I can control it in my administration, there won’t ever be misrepresentations and certainly not to the extreme of lying to any members of the Legislature.”