AQMD Accused of Job Bias, Spying; U.S. to Investigate : Inquiry: Former affirmative action officer claims discrimination against blacks and Latinos. Agency officials deny those allegations and political espionage charges.

Three federal agencies have decided to investigate the personnel practices of the South Coast Air Quality Management District in the wake of charges of job discrimination and reports of political espionage, The Times has learned.

The inquiries are based on sweeping complaints filed by the district’s former affirmative action officer, Doris Wright, on behalf of nearly 180 minority employees. Wright, who was fired in March, charged that Latino and black employees were regularly excluded from job openings, denied promotions and kept out of management positions.

The complaints were lodged with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Commission on Civil Rights and the Department of Labor. All three federal agencies are investigating or making plans to do so.

Contained in the complaints are allegations about AQMD practices that have sparked controversy among local and state officials. They include charges that:

* A longtime aide to state Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside) was hired over otherwise qualified minority employees to a new $67,000-a-year post after job qualifications were changed to emphasize legislative experience, and that AQMD personnel director Robert Hale ordered subordinates to alter the promotion records to cover up evidence of job discrimination.

* Hale urged Wright to delay a critical report identifying barriers to promotions for women and other minorities until after he received a new contract and salary bonus.

* A district staffer was ordered to function as a political operative to wheedle information from unsuspecting local officials on how they would vote in upcoming AQMD board elections. Although she was not named in the complaints, Julie Flores told The Times that she passed along the information in confidential memos to district executives.

All charges in the complaints have been categorically denied by AQMD officials, who also dispute Flores’ report of political spying.

“I look around and I don’t see that,” AQMD Executive Officer James M. Lents said of the discrimination charges. “I think we are promoting the best people on the job that we have . . . and where we’ve found good minority people that could do it--and we’ve found some--we are hiring them and promoting them.”

No matter the outcome of the discrimination investigations, they have the potential to spur one of the most politically convulsive episodes in the AQMD’s history. The complaints come at a time when the district has been working to overcome a reputation of running out of control and lacking accountability to voters.

Already, black members of the state Legislature have summoned Lents to Sacramento for an explanation.

Wright, the district’s first affirmative action officer, was fired last March after 11 months on the job on grounds that she was not viewed as a “team player” and had an “ongoing inability” to coordinate and communicate. Her unsatisfactory performance ratings contrasted sharply with glowing job reviews as an equal employment opportunity officer with the Internal Revenue Service, where she worked for 18 years.

Joining Wright in filing the federal complaints were the former and current co-chairs of the district’s Affirmative Action Committee, and Eugene Fisher, a black executive who until recently was the district’s chief lobbyist in Sacramento. He has since been reassigned as the AQMD’s liaison with local governments in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Wright’s EEOC complaint seeks nearly $76 million in damages and the removal of Lents and other top executives. Air district officials have been notified in writing that an inquiry has been opened.

Philip Montez, regional director of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, said his agency will open an investigation sometime this month and will hold public hearings.

“It seems the complaints keep coming in and it continues,” Montez said. “We do anticipate taking a strong look at it because there are real problems, based on the information we have now.”

A spokesman for the Department of Labor’s office of federal contract compliance programs confirmed that an investigation has begun.

While the federal agencies are expected to concentrate on job discrimination issues, the reports of political spying are likely to draw the most immediate interest from local government officials. City officials from around Southern California elect five of the 12 members of the air district’s governing board.

Confidential memos obtained by The Times indicate that city officials in Anaheim, Santa Ana, Irvine, Fullerton, Santa Ana and Huntington Beach, as well as in the Orange County division of the League of California Cities, were singled out as intelligence targets.

The political intelligence-gathering apparently was spurred because district executives were concerned that board Chairman Henry W. Wedaa and member Henry M. Morgan, who usually back the top staff on key issues, might be defeated by challengers who would be more critical of the district’s leadership.

As a liaison officer for the district’s Intergovernmental Affairs Office, Flores was in an ideal position to gather information. The office was created to improve contacts and cooperation between local governments on air quality issues.

From last November through early this year, Flores said much of her time was co-opted by her superiors’ near-preoccupation with the board elections.

“We were putting so much effort toward this we couldn’t get our regular work done because we were so worried about this,” Flores said.

At every opportunity--from city hall visits to official dinners--she said she questioned local officials without alerting them that their remarks were being reported in “highly confidential” memos to AQMD executives.

“In my mind the things they asked me to do were highly inappropriate,” Flores said in an interview. “. . . I regret my participation in it.” She has since been reassigned to the public information desk in the AQMD lobby.

There is no evidence that her activities, while clandestine, were illegal. Nor is there any assertion by Flores or city officials that district executives attempted to influence the elections. But the episode could undermine the AQMD’s efforts to improve its relations with local government.

“Basically, it hurts the relationship,” said Anaheim Assistant City Manager Jim Armstrong, who said he was surprised to learn that his description of Wedaa as “cantankerous” had been passed on to AQMD executives. “It’s not something I put in memos and I’m disappointed they put in memos.”

Flores’ reports analyzed, among other things, why cities had voted the way they had in early ballots and examined campaign strategy. For example, one memo reported that board incumbent Morgan’s opponent--La Puente Councilman Lou Perez--would have time before the next round of voting to lobby officials of predominantly “ethnic cities” where he had shown strength.

Observations about social contacts also were reported to AQMD headquarters. For example, Santa Ana City Manager David Ream was reported to sometimes play golf with Wedaa, a Yorba Linda City Council member.

One Flores memo was addressed to Oscar Abarca, head of the AQMD Intergovernmental Affairs Office. She said another was written with him and addressed to Lents’ assistant, Eugene F. Calafato.

In interviews with The Times, Abarca and Calafato at first denied any knowledge of the memos.

“We’d be out of our goddamn mind to try to find out how they were going to vote. We just don’t do that kind of thing,” said Calafato.

After the two officials were informed that The Times had copies, Abarca relayed word to the newspaper that upon searching his files he had, in fact, found one of the political memos addressed from Flores to him.

Calafato also recalled later that he may have received such a memo from Flores containing political information.

“If I thought having this information could be useful in influencing an election, I’m not going to tell you I wouldn’t have been interested,” Calafato said.

But both Calafato and Abarca called the information Flores provided them useless. Abarca said Flores acted on her own.

After receiving the first memo, Abarca said, he admonished Flores to halt her activities, which he described in an interview as “skulduggery.”

Yet, five days later, Calafato received a second memo--with a typewritten notation indicating it was written by Abarca himself--containing information he had sought on Costa Mesa City Councilman Peter Buffa. The same memo tipped Calafato on how Santa Ana Mayor Dan Young intended to vote in the election for the AQMD board.

Abarca at first denied to The Times that he was the author of the second memo. Later, after Calafato said in Abarca’s presence that it was “quite possible” Abarca could have written the report, Abarca was asked again by The Times if he remembered writing the memo.

“Yes, I do,” Abarca replied.

Flores, who holds a bachelor of arts degree in political science from Stanford University, denied acting on her own.

“He (Abarca) repeatedly told me every time I went out to see the cities to remember the most important thing to find out today is who they’re voting for,” Flores said.

Fullerton City Planner Joel Rosen said he was “pressured” for political information by Abarca, and was “astonished” that his remarks to Flores had been forwarded to district executives.

“I’ll be careful what I say from now on,” Rosen said.

In an interview, AQMD Executive Officer Lents said he saw no problem with asking city officials how they intended to vote. “We’re all interested in who’s going to be our board members,” Lents said.

But putting the officials’ remarks in confidential memos may not have been “good judgment,” Lents added. “They will be told they shouldn’t be doing that,” he said.

In addition to making charges about the use of staff for political purposes, the job discrimination complaints by Wright and other employees cite examples of what they call favoritism and discrimination in hiring and promotion.

In one instance, the complaints allege, Calafato tailored the job qualifications for the new post of director of small-business assistance in a way that helped Thomas Mullins, a longtime aide to state Sen. Presley, whose legislation had been instrumental in expanding the AQMD’s regulatory power.

Before the job was advertised, agency sources told The Times, Calafato changed the proposed job description so that it gave far greater weight to legislative experience.

Once the job was advertised, prospects had five days to submit applications--an unusually short filing period. Lents said the district wanted to fill the post quickly because of complaints that the needs of small business were not being met. Still, more than 100 resumes were received, many of them sent by fax.

An interview panel selected by Calafato narrowed the list to three finalists, including Mullins. Mullins got the job. Ironically, he quit after five months.

After Mullins was hired, Wright’s complaints charge, AQMD personnel director Hale ordered subordinates to fabricate a listing of other eligible candidates because a black employee had filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Hale and other district officials deny that promotion records were fabricated.

“It was a totally open recruitment,” Calafato said.

Nonetheless, Wright alleged that the district’s employment practices were blatantly discriminatory. She said that out of a total of 74 managers, there are only two black women and five Latino men.

When Wright informed Hale that she intended to undertake a study of affirmative action practices, the complaints said, Hale opposed the idea. He worried that if she called attention to problems in August, he would not receive a three-year contract renewal and salary bonus, Wright alleged.

Wright said she agreed to wait until September. When she eventually produced a stinging preliminary report indicating serious problems, she said Hale retaliated by cutting her clerical help by 60%, forcing her to work nights and weekends to finish the report.

Hale said any reassignment of the clerical pool was the result of other work priorities. He confirmed that he did ask Wright to delay her report, not because it would reflect badly on him, but because he said he was concerned about its accuracy.