Harbor Officials to Pay City $1,530 for Dinners : Government: Expensive meals exceeded controller’s guidelines. Department will comply, but argues that the costs were justified.

Los Angeles Harbor Department officials have agreed to reimburse the city for more than $1,500 worth of dinners at expensive restaurants last year, City Controller Rick Tuttle said Thursday.

After months of negotiations, the department has agreed to ask employees and contractors who incurred the excessive charges to reimburse the city a total of $1,530.15, Tuttle said.

The tabs, which were rejected in December because they exceeded Tuttle’s guidelines for dining at public expense, included a $310 bill--about $78 per person--from a downtown hotel where Commissioner Jun Mori and another port official entertained two Japanese shipping executives.

City auditors found that the bill from the Checkers Hotel included $32 lobster plates, $27 lamb entrees, a $31 bottle of wine and escargot appetizers.

Other challenged expenses included a $371 dinner--$74 per person--at Bernard’s in the downtown Biltmore Hotel, where Mori and port executive Tay Yoshitani were host to Japanese banking representatives.

Harbor Executive Director Ezunial Burts had argued that the fast-growing port should be permitted to spend more on entertainment than other city departments.

Tuttle disagreed, saying the individual meal costs ranging from $49 to $78 violated his “reasonable person” standard.

“I am pleased to announce this settlement with the Harbor Department,” Tuttle said. “It is important for every city department and every city contractor to use public monies prudently.”

Port spokeswoman Julia Nagano said that although the department intends to comply with Tuttle’s directive, “We do believe they are valid expenses.

“When we are hosted by our tenants, we run the risk of offending them if we do not reciprocate,” Nagano said. “So, a $60 dinner for one of our major tenants may mean, over a 10-year period of time, $200 million contracts to the port and the city.”

Nonetheless, she added: “We are sensitive to the guidelines the controller and department have agreed upon and our employees have been instructed to fall with those guidelines.”