Hayden Urges Governor to Fire Lottery Director

State Sen. Tom Hayden urged Gov. Pete Wilson on Monday to fire his lottery director, saying there was growing evidence of “inappropriate links” between government officials and an East Coast company that has obtained millions of dollars in lottery contracts.

The Santa Monica Democrat, speaking at a news conference in Los Angeles, said the agency’s image, already tarnished by the controversy surrounding its handling of major contracts, has been stained even more by recent testimony in the federal criminal corruption trial of lobbyist Clayton R. Jackson and former state Sen. Paul B. Carpenter (D-Downey).

Hayden said he referred to a conversation, secretly taped by the FBI in November, 1991, in which Jackson, a former lobbyist for Rhode Island-based GTECH Corp., bragged that Wilson had appointed a lottery director who was “our gal.”

Hayden said Jackson obviously meant director Sharon Sharp, who later recommended that GTECH be awarded a $400-million lottery contract in which it was the sole bidder.

He also criticized one of Wilson’s advisers, Joe Rodota, who advised the governor about the lottery and on the appointment of a new director shortly after Wilson was elected. Rodota, now Wilson’s Cabinet secretary, later received a subcontract to do public relations work for GTECH.

The tapes “reinforce the growing impression among many legislators and the public that there is something rotten in the California lottery,” Hayden wrote in a letter to Wilson.

Kevin Eckery, a Wilson spokesman, defended Sharp and Rodota, saying both continue to have Wilson’s confidence. “The governor has no intention whatsoever of removing Sharon Sharp,” Eckery said.

Sharp issued a statement saying that, during the six years she has directed public lotteries, “I have always put the interests of the lottery before everything.”

At a news conference on Proposition 172, the initiative that would make permanent an emergency half-cent sales tax increase, Wilson defended Rodota. He also dismissed Jackson’s tape-recorded boasts that he had frequent access to the governor’s office as the braggadocio of a lobbyist who was trying to impress high-paying clients. “I think short of actual charges that Jackson probably ought to be taken with considerable salt,” Wilson said.

Eckery said Sharp has ably carried out her top priority--improving lottery revenues. Since Sharp took over the California lottery in October, 1991, she has been able to reverse a decline in sales and increase revenue allocated to education, Eckery said.

Although he acknowledged that the governor’s office has had concerns about Sharp’s handling of major contracts, he said the governor considers that a separate issue. He noted that a governor’s task force evaluated the lottery and found no wrongdoing connected with the contracts.

Several potential GTECH competitors last spring declined to bid on a $400-million contract to run the lottery’s computerized games, saying they believed the specifications favored GTECH. Sharp was again criticized last month when she proposed that GTECH get a $23-million non-competitive contract to provide more convenient payoffs for small Scratcher prizes.

GTECH has repeatedly maintained that its relationships with the lottery have been professional.

Jackson and Carpenter face a 12-count federal indictment charging them with racketeering, conspiracy and money laundering. They have pleaded not guilty. One of the racketeering counts accuses Jackson of bribing former state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) to help kill a bill opposed by GTECH. Officials with GTECH have denied any knowledge of the alleged bribe.