Councilman’s Africa Trip Criticized as Costly, Unnecessary : Spending: Louis Byrd defends his attendance at conference, but critics say the $3,900 expense will yield few--if any--benefits.

City Councilman Louis Byrd is under fire for traveling to Gabon in Central Africa at city expense to attend a summit on economic and human development in that region.

The nine-day trip, which included brief stops in New York City, Morocco and Senegal, cost $3,957, according to city documents.

Byrd said he met some of Africa’s most influential leaders during the five-day summit, including the presidents of Benin, Botswana and Nigeria. Among those who spoke at the event were the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Coretta Scott King.

Byrd defended the trip, saying his participation will help foster trade between Lynwood and African nations into the next century. “We will have access to Africa, if we play the cards right,” he said. “I can communicate around the world right now with the contact(s) I made on the trip.”

But critics said the trip will yield few--if any--tangible results and comes at a time when the city is considering a freeze on employee salaries for the second consecutive year to help offset reduced revenues.

“If he would have come back with the cure for AIDS or a joint venture, like an industrial complex, we could see something like that,” said Benjamin Miranda, who is heading a campaign to recall Byrd. “But he didn’t bring back anything except the names of some dignitaries he met.”

Miranda predicted that the controversial trip will fuel the recall effort, which was launched last month against Byrd, a councilman who has about 2 1/2 years remaining in his first term. Critics have made Byrd’s spending one of the centerpieces of their campaign.

Recall organizers said they plan to begin collecting signatures once the wording on their petitions is certified by the city clerk next week. Byrd’s trip was approved by former City Manager Laurence H. Adams Sr., who was placed on paid administrative leave by the council last month over an unrelated issue. Council travel expenses are routinely approved by the city manager and do not require City Council authorization.

Byrd was among 1,000 African-American political, business and religious leaders who were invited to attend the summit. Byrd said he is a longtime associate of the summit’s chairman, the Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, a prominent civil rights leader. Other California participants included Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles), Assemblywoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) and former Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton).

Lynwood Mayor Paul H. Richards II defended the trip, saying that critics fail to recognize the importance that global trade will play in coming years for cities located near the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. Establishing links with countries in Africa and other places could help generate revenues for the city, he said. Richards noted that Lynwood lies along the Alameda Corridor, a multibillion-dollar truck and rail route that will link the two ports with downtown Los Angeles.

“We cannot operate in a vacuum,” Richards said. “Lynwood leadership would be out of touch with reality if we don’t recognize that the foundation of our industrial base now stands on an international (scale).”

The trip was criticized, however, by councilmen Louis J. Heine and Armando Rea.

“It’s really shocking that an elected official would find it necessary to place himself in a secretary of state position as an ambassador to Africa when public services are desperately needed here,” Rea said. “The trip did not warrant city participation. We’re one little speck in the United States, if you look at a map.”

Heine said he questions “the legitimacy of it. I personally feel that all out-of-state trips should be approved by the council.”

Byrd said he plans to attend a similar summit scheduled in Ghana in two years.

“We are building bridges to a continent that has the world’s richest resources but some of the poorest people in the world,” he said. “They need our help.”

Attending such events will help Lynwood’s African-American community, which makes up 20% of the city’s population, develop stronger cultural ties with Africa, Byrd said. He has proposed a sister-city relationship between Lynwood and Fort Portal, Uganda.

Councilman Heine said he is concerned, however, that a sister-city relationship would create “another excessive cost.”

Mayor Pro Tem Evelyn Wells could not be reached for comment on the trip.

Organizers of the recall campaign, known as Concerned Citizens of Lynwood, say the trip illustrates Byrd’s appetite for excessive spending of taxpayer money.

Byrd has spent more than $17,800 on travel-related expenses since the beginning of the fiscal year last July, and Wells has spent more than $15,500, city records show. Heine has spent about $10,000; Rea has spent nearly $7,800, and Richards has spent about $5,700.

But council members have spent more on travel than the records indicate. Some council travel expenses are billed directly to the city and are not listed by individual council member.

Over the last year, Byrd has traveled out of state on city business more than any of his council colleagues, records show. He has visited New York City, Baltimore, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Mass. Among the sessions he has attended were a conference on youth employment, a gathering of black public administrators and meetings on the city’s bond rating, according to city records. A number of other Lynwood council members also attended those meetings, records show. Byrd said that all of his expenses have been proper, and that he has attended many functions at the request of the mayor and city manager.

“I have always had the city’s interest at heart,” Byrd said. “I came on with the attitude that I would do whatever I could to make a difference in this city.”

Byrd criticized recall organizers, calling them gadflies “who like the notoriety.” Each of the other four council members have been targeted for recall, but none of the previous attempts has resulted in an election.