City Hall Grapples With Harassment Issue : Workplace: Officials are putting a new emphasis on dealing with sexual misconduct as complaints increase. Women’s advocates say powerbrokers are finally being forced to catch up to modern times.

The supervisor admitted touching, kissing and hugging his female co-workers in the Department of Water and Power. But when accused of sexual harassment last summer and hauled before a hearing officer, he denied that he had overstepped any bounds of propriety.

His actions, he said, were just part of office camaraderie.

Tougher to explain was why he had crouched under a co-worker’s desk while she was away and grabbed at her ankle when she returned. The surprised woman broke into tears. The man explained that he had dropped a quarter.

“The conduct,” the skeptical hearing officer said in suspending the man for 13 days, “went far beyond the bounds of office camaraderie and cannot be justified.”

Sexual harassment allegations against City Councilman Nate Holden and City Clerk Elias Martinez have grabbed the headlines in recent weeks, but the city’s 45,000 other employees--most with names not well-known outside their offices--are grappling with the subject too.

And for anybody listening to the water-cooler gossip or flipping through official files, one thing is clear: Beneath the bureaucratic exterior of City Hall lurks a torrent of sexual behavior--some of which crosses into harassment.

The problem sometimes comes in sorting out who did what to whom.

Consider:

* A male Police Department supervisor was found to have made derogatory comments about women last year. But the case was complicated when the woman who made the allegations was found to have delivered retorts that denigrated men.

* An animal control officer was suspended last year for making repeated sexual comments to a female colleague, blowing up condoms and bringing women’s panties into the office. The final straw, according to the woman, was when he stole the negative of a photograph in which she had exposed a breast and then made copies and sent them to her superiors. She said she had willingly posed for the picture taken by her boss as part of a gag gift for a retiring co-worker--but never expected it to be widely circulated. The boss was not disciplined.

* In a case officials say is quite rare, a female Fire Department employee was suspended for 10 days last year for joking about a colleague’s penis size and making other derogatory sexual comments.

Throughout City Hall, claims of harassment have risen sharply since law professor Anita Hill accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual misdeeds in a case that captured national attention. A survey released last fall found that nearly two in five female Los Angeles city employees who responded said they had been sexually harassed on the job.

Women’s advocates say the powerbrokers--from low-level supervisors to City Council members--are finally being forced to catch up to modern times.

“Reading Playboy at your desk or hanging pinups on your wall is not appropriate,” said Paula Petrotta, executive director of the city’s Commission on the Status of Women, one of the many people in City Hall designated to receive such allegations. “It’s not an infringement (on) men’s rights. I have no feelings of empathy for people that do that.”

Petrotta, who has worked in various City Hall posts for the last two decades, said there was a time when sexual comments and unwelcome touching were commonplace. Back then, women were prohibited from wearing pants to work and were deemed too high-strung to hold certain jobs.

“Now we say: ‘Oh, my God, that’s awful,’ ” she said. “But back then, women felt like it was just something they had to deal with. I know that’s the way I felt.”

Now she is one of six female department heads--there are more than 35 men in such positions--and an outspoken advocate for women harassed on the job. Petrotta and other top-ranking women have formed a group called City Hall Executive Women to grapple with issues such as sexual harassment.

Last fall’s survey found that 37% of women said they were harassed in their jobs, compared to the 25% to 30% typically found in nationwide surveys of women in the workplace.

Some contend that one reason such harassment is so widespread is the male dominance of City Hall. Just 26% of the city’s employees are women, and of those 11,600 female workers, 63% are clerical employees.

Attorney Jack O’Donnell, who is representing one of three former aides accusing Holden of harassment, said it is the power inherent in city government that fosters such behavior.

“It’s a power thing, not a sex thing,” O’Donnell said. “That’s why it happens in the movie industry, with politicians and high profile execs. Their power makes it possible.”

One measure of City Hall’s new scrutiny of the problem is the fact that officials have begun keeping comprehensive sexual harassment statistics in an attempt to better define the problem. There were 11 complaints filed last year, but far more than that were handled informally within departments. Women’s advocates say that most instances of sexual harassment are never reported.

One female police officer knows why. Since she filed a complaint last year charging that a colleague had subjected her to a barrage of sexual comments, she said her superiors have done nothing but stonewall her.

“When (my boss) interviewed me, he asked me what I was wearing at the time and whether I ever had sex with this man,” she said. “It’s been absolutely horrendous. I’m getting hang-up phone calls at home. . . . However, I’ve taken a stand and I’m not going to let this behavior go on.”

With all the recent attention, sexual harassment has become the No. 2 discrimination complaint filed with the city--behind race.

After the survey was released last October, the city agreed to hire a sexual harassment ombudsman--a position that has yet to be filled--and to spend $25,000 on sensitivity training for some top supervisors, which some critics contend will only skim the surface of what is needed.

Some officials fear the financial liability the city faces if such harassment continues. Although sexual harassment judgments and settlements have been relatively low--the highest known award was $95,000--officials acknowledge that the potential liability is high.

“The primary reason you should not engage in sexual harassment is because it’s wrong,” said Fred Merkin, senior assistant city attorney who heads the employee relations division. “But the potential for financial liability is there too. All it takes is one big case.”

Still, some contend that in the city’s zeal to crack down on sexual harassment, some men are being unfairly accused. Holden and Martinez have denied the allegations leveled against them.

“I’ve represented men who have been accused of leering at women,” said Michael J. Berman, who represents blue-collar supervisors as executive director of the Los Angeles City Supervisors and Superintendents Assn. “That’s a matter of perception. Was he looking at her, staring off into space or just looking at her admiringly? What bothers me is even if the accused is found innocent, the stigma lingers.”

A security guard who patrols City Hall at night and has been on staff for two decades said he has seen drastic changes in sexual dynamics around the building.

“You have to be careful these days. The women are wearing skirts up to here,” he said, pointing to his upper thigh, “and you don’t know why. Is it a fashion thing or are they coming on to you? You can’t ask them for their number or grab their butt ‘cause you don’t know what will happen. . . . Sexual harassment is a big thing these days. In my day we called it flirting.”

Many women would say such comments illustrate the attitudes that cause the problem in the first place. But female employees are far from unanimous in their views on where the harassment line should be drawn.

“When someone who is your direct supervisor makes sex a condition of employment, that’s sexual harassment,” said one female council aide who doubts some of the allegations made against Martinez and Holden. “In my view, telling a risque joke is a joke. I happen to tell risque jokes myself.”

A councilman said he recently told a city employee how pretty she was and received an elbow from another female aide.

Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who started working in City Hall in the mid-1950s as a stenographer, said she has never been subjected to behavior that she deemed sexual harassment. But the attention focused on the subject has affected the way men and women interact, she said.

“I happen to think (Councilman) Richard Alatorre is a fantastic dresser,” she said. “There’s nothing sexual about it. I told him once that I liked his outfit. . . . And then I thought: ‘If he were to tell me that, would it be sexual harassment?’ ”

Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this story.