Council Members’ Spending Questioned by Ethics Panel : City Hall: From buying fish to paying club dues, officeholders have spent funds on various items. Commission says law is too vague to determine if such expenditures violate standards.

Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro bought a departing aide $255 worth of camping equipment. Councilman Hal Bernson paid a $2,000 membership in his Northridge temple. And former Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores purchased $75 in fresh fish for a colleague.

All three politicians made these purchases using privately solicited “officeholder” accounts--money that city law requires be used exclusively for governmental, legislative or political purposes, except for election campaigns.

After an exhaustive review of the accounts, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission has raised pointed questions about dozens of expenditures by council members and other elected officials. In a report released Thursday, the commission has also determined that the city ordinance regulating the accounts is “inadequate” and “vague,” leaving the commission largely powerless to take corrective action.

The panel has called a public hearing for next Thursday to begin discussions on a series of amendments to the law to increase accountability for public officials and to forbid specific uses of the funds.

Among the changes proposed is banning use of the funds to pay dues in athletic, religious, social and civic organizations. More documentation would also be required to prove that travel, gifts and entertainment serve legitimate governmental or political purposes.

“We want to make ourselves clearer and stronger and have more public accountability in a whole series of areas,” said Ben Bycel, executive director of the commission.

The commission had previously announced that it would not pursue the most serious recent allegations surrounding the accounts--that Councilman Michael Woo illegally used the funds to prepare for his run for mayor.

Woo was accused of using the fund to set up a campaign staff, to travel around the country to address supporters, and to set up his campaign’s computer system. He defended the spending as legitimate office expenses and outreach to constituents.

In that case, the commission also cited ambiguity in the city law as a barrier to taking any action.

During reviews that began last fall, the Ethics Commission has questioned the office account expenditures of the majority of the city’s elected officials.

The commission found that the “large majority” of the expenditures were legitimate, but that other payments could not be clearly justified.

The most difficult area to judge were political expenses, the commission said. Payments are legitimate if they are for general purposes, such as staying in touch with constituents, but not if they are designed to benefit a politician’s reelection campaign.

Auditors sent written inquiries about payments that could not be clearly justified and officeholders responded with their explanations. The expenditures were an eclectic mix:

* Bernson paid $2,000 in 1991 for membership in Temple Ramat Zion. The councilman’s staff said the expenditure was a legitimate political expense because “there is a very large Jewish population in the councilman’s district and it has been very important to us to keep a close working relationship with that group.”

Bernson also defended a $144 expenditure to attend the wedding of the daughter of an unnamed “major supporter.” He called the spending “political in nature.”

* Ferraro spent $255 for a camp stove, cooler, chairs and other items for retiring press deputy Bill Gilson. The council president’s written explanation said “expenditures of this kind have been made in the past,” without being called into question.

He also made a $71 payment of dues to the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Ethics Commission officials said payment of health club dues is prohibited by the state Government Code, but Ferraro said such expenditures have routinely been audited and approved in the past.

* Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky paid $433 for a fax machine that he gave to a city official in Kiev, Ukraine. Yaroslavsky said the gift would help “further the cause of democracy in the old U.S.S.R.”

* Councilman Nate Holden paid $300 to send a constituent to tennis tournaments in Washington, D.C., and New Jersey, saying he was trying to help a “disadvantaged kid” represent the community.

* Councilman Joel Wachs spent more than $1,000 on trips to New York and San Francisco, justifying the expenses as appropriate because he met with officials to discuss “public art issues.”

* Former Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores had 20 packages of fresh fish delivered to City Hall for Ferraro after the council president suffered from a heart ailment in 1991. No explanation was offered.

* Councilman Richard Alatorre paid $316 to fly, along with his wife, to the wedding of Frank del Olmo, deputy editor of the Los Angeles Times editorial pages. Alatorre justified the expense by saying the editor holds a position “that can influence the mass population on various governmental issues.”

Del Olmo said: “Councilman Alatorre’s wife, Angie, has for many years been a close personal friend of my wife, Magdalena Beltran-del Olmo. We attended their wedding in 1990 and were pleased to reciprocate by inviting them to our wedding in 1991. In both instances, the relationship was social and had no effect on any editorial positions The Times has taken.”

The Ethics Commission staff did not follow up after receiving the council members’ explanations, deciding that it would be more effective to control expenditures by rewriting the city’s law, Bycel said.