Berman Calls for Investigation of Ex-HUD Worker : Housing: Former U.S. employee handled a package of benefits to the owner of a Pacoima project, then took a job as manager of the complex.

Rep. Howard L. Berman has called for a criminal investigation to determine whether an ex-federal housing employee violated ethics laws in his professional relationship with the owner of a San Fernando Valley housing project.

Berman (D-Panorama City) sent a letter to U.S. Atty. Lourdes Baird on Thursday asking for an investigation of Michael S. Damron, who left the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last January and is now managing the low- and moderate-income Lakeview Terrace Apartments in Pacoima. Shortly before taking the new job, Damron worked on a HUD-approved package of rent increases and other benefits to the owner.

Berman’s letter cited reports in a story published Sunday in The Times.

“If confirmed, these allegations would certainly suggest that a law intended to bolster the confidence of the public in the integrity of government officials and governmental actions has been violated in a number of critical respects,” Berman wrote. He gave The Times a copy of his letter.

Baird, the federal prosecutor for the central district of California, had not received the letter Friday and could not comment, spokeswoman Carole Levitzky said.

Damron declined comment Friday. He has previously denied any wrongdoing.

HUD officials also said they had no response to Berman’s request. They have said that an internal inquiry found that Damron had broken no laws.

Berman, whose 26th District includes Pacoima, told Baird that “actions in which Mr. Damron has been involved, first as a federal employee and now as the manager of federally subsidized housing, have adversely affected many of my low-income constituents who reside in the Lakeview Terrace Apartments.”

Berman has previously raised questions with HUD about steep rent increases and maintenance problems at the complex. Damron’s job switch has prompted angry complaints by the tenants that HUD had failed to protect their interests.

Before last January, Damron was a mid-level HUD employee who worked on an agreement granting certain benefits to the owner of the complex, including rent increases for some tenants exceeding 100% over three years.

Two months after the agreement was approved, Damron left HUD to run a private management company created by Richard Tod Spieker, a Palo Alto real estate developer who owns Lakeview Terrace Apartments and other properties.

Spieker was eligible for various benefits, including rent increases, under a program that encourages developers of HUD-subsidized housing to retain their units as low- and moderate-income.

Otherwise, those developers could pay off their long-term mortgages and convert the apartments to more expensive residences, or sell them. Lakeview Terrace Apartment tenants maintain, however, that the benefits given to Spieker were too generous and posed extreme hardship for them.

HUD officials said Damron had the right to go to work for Spieker after leaving the agency. But The Times reported that Damron’s job change raised questions under two areas of federal law.

First, ex-government employees are prohibited from representing private employers on federal matters in which they participated “personally and substantially” as government workers. The law says this can mean making recommendations as well as decisions.

The tenants contend that Damron, as a HUD expert, played a key role at the complex. As a manager, he often works with his ex-colleagues at HUD.

HUD officials, however, said Damron was never in a position to make decisions or participate substantially.

They said Damron was a technician who started work on the Lakeview Terrace Apartments agreement after negotiations were completed.

The second area of federal law involved potential conflict of interest by job-seekers.

Federal employees are barred by law from participating in a matter in which someone with whom they are negotiating for a job has a financial interest.

HUD officials said Damron informed a supervisor in November, 1990, that he had discussed a job with Spieker. Charles Ming, manager of HUD’s Los Angeles office, said he immediately “had him stop working on anything that related to Spieker Cos.” and referred the matter to HUD’s San Francisco regional office. Ming said it determined there was no impropriety.

Berman said in his letter to Baird that he does not “have first-hand knowledge of the extent of Mr. Damron’s involvement in the Lakeview Terrace plan while he was still at HUD nor of whether he was indeed negotiating for post-government employment while engaged in a matter substantially affecting his eventual employer.”