Controller Sinks New Harbor Dept. Bills : Cost control: Tuttle rejects officials’ ‘excessive’ charges and challenges the legitimacy of thousands of dollars in hotel and refreshment bills.

In a continuing crackdown on entertainment expenses at the Los Angeles Harbor Department, City Controller Rick Tuttle said Thursday he has rejected “excessive” meal and travel charges and is questioning the legitimacy of thousands of dollars in hotel and refreshment bills.

In a letter to Harbor Executive Director Ezunial Burts, Tuttle said that expenses for meals, limousines and liquor “violate the ‘reasonable person’ standard” he uses in weighing the legitimacy of expense claims.

Tuttle, whose role is to act as the city’s financial watchdog, said “it seems apparent that (some Harbor officials are) not operating under the same standards we require city employees and other contractors to follow when using public funds.”

While not commenting directly on the controller’s refusal to pay the bills, Harbor officials said they are requesting a meeting between Tuttle and Harbor Commission members to discuss the ongoing flap over expenses.

Among the questioned charges are: $340 for a limousine; dinner charges of $220 per person at the Alasaka Prince Hotel in Tokyo and $531 for refreshments for nine people at a business meeting.

Tuttle allows up to $40 per person for dinner in Los Angeles and about $170 per person in Tokyo. The controller will not reimburse liquor expenses for city employees.

Tuttle in the letter to Burts Wednesday made final his rejection of $8,990 in entertainment expenses, including a $310 dinner for four at the swank Checkers Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and a similar $74-a-head dinner for five at the Biltmore.

The Times in December reported the controller’s rejection of such Harbor Department expenses, but officials have continued to seek reimbursement, according to Deputy Controller Tim Lynch.

“They haven’t done anything except complain that we haven’t paid it,” said Lynch. Tuttle had recommended that the officials resubmit a more reasonable amount for reimbursement or appeal the case to the City Council.

In addition, Tuttle has since found more than $6,000 in new charges that he is questioning.

Among those expenses, listed in a separate letter Wednesday, are $4,479 in hotel charges for Mayor Tom Bradley and his assistants at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo last fall.

“We have continued to see the same types of charges as we saw before,” said Lynch. “Only now, they are putting them on their contractor’s bill,” Lynch said, referring to expenses submitted by Shuji Nomura, the Harbor’s Tokyo-based trade promoter.

During the past year Tuttle has repeatedly criticized Nomura’s expenses, including $100,000 for several club memberships, dinner parties and other entertainment; more than $10,000 a year for limousines and taxis and daily commuting and $8,400 a year for subscriptions.

Harbor officials and Bradley, who frequently travels to Japan on Harbor business, have defended Nomura’s expenses as costs of doing business that have helped Los Angeles to become the largest port for trade with Japan.

But in his letter to the Harbor director, Tuttle said, “I recommend that Mr. Nomura reduce the total of his request for reimbursement . . . and refrain from such activities in the future.”