Ethics Panel’s Director Fears for His Job : Government: Benjamin Bycel says commission chairwoman told him he will be fired over rifts with other agencies. She says only that she will hold a meeting on his status.

Benjamin Bycel, the executive director of the city’s Ethics Commission since its inception in 1991, says he is struggling to save his job after being told by Mayor Richard Riordan’s new appointee as commission president, UCLA law professor Raquelle de la Rocha, that she has decided he should be fired.

De La Rocha denied telling Bycel that, but she confirmed that she has called a closed personnel hearing on Bycel’s status for Friday because, she said, neither the state Fair Political Practices Commission, of which she used to be a member, nor Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti is willing to deal with him.

“The issue has been festering for a year and a half,” De la Rocha said. “Somebody is going to have to bring it up.”

But Bycel declared, “I don’t know why anyone would want to change the conductor while the train’s running just fine. We are generally recognized as one of the foremost ethics commissions in America.”

Riordan senior adviser William Wardlaw said Wednesday that the Riordan Administration has no role in De la Rocha’s moves regarding Bycel. “Obviously, the mayor selected her and has great confidence in her, but this is [her] position,” he said.

A Bycel supporter, Commissioner Edwin Guthman, meanwhile, called on De la Rocha to postpone consideration of the matter “because this is not the way to treat anyone, and especially someone who has given loyal, effective service to this city.”

Paying tribute to Bycel as a highly effective staff director, Guthman charged that, “from what she has told me, I can only conclude that the chairperson has talked only to people who have a grudge against the commission and have focused it on Ben Bycel.”

Bycel branded as unfounded what he termed “vicious accusations by the FPPC that I leaked information the day before a joint press conference” of the two agencies. “There was no leaking of confidential information,” he said.

As for the district attorney, Bycel said that Garcetti’s office “gave up the name of our whistle-blower to the [Los Angeles] city attorney’s office” during an Ethics Commission inquiry into political activities on city time by assistants to City Atty. James K. Hahn, and that emissaries of the commission had protested to Garcetti over that action.

Since those disputes, both more than a year ago, relations of the FPPC and Garcetti with the Ethics Commission have been ruptured, despite attempts by ethics commissioners to heal the breach.

Bycel said that when he asked De la Rocha what a confidential agenda item for Friday was about, “she told me that she has conducted an investigation without myknowledge and input into the relationship between the Ethics Commission and the FPPC and district attorney’s office, and based on that inquiry she’s decided that I should be terminated.”

“I’ve asked for an opportunity to present information on my own behalf,” he added.

Although Bycel confirmed that he also asked an attorney to represent him in discussions with De la Rocha, he said that he stands “ready to continue to work with the chairperson and understand that she may have a new vision for the Ethics Commission. As long as it’s consistent with strong, fair and effective enforcement, I’m ready to sign on.”

De la Rocha said she is concerned that the FPPC and the district attorney “have no relationship with us.”

“The issue is not why did these rifts happen, but can we fix them,” she said. “I want to discuss the situation with the other commissioners and I don’t have any more to say. It’s so premature that this is in the newspapers first.”

However, two commission sources said they believed that De | la Rocha has already secured the support of two other ethics commissioners, Eve Fisher and Ann Petrone, to fire Bycel. That would give her three votes, including her own, which would be sufficient.

In addition to Guthman, Commissioner Teresa Drury is reportedly supporting Bycel.

De la Rocha denied even talking to Fisher and Petrone on the subject, saying she had conversed only with Guthman about it, and both Fisher and Petrone denied talking to her.

Petrone said she had been out of the country and added, “I do not feel I have sufficient information on the Ben Bycel situation to make a statement at this time.”

But, she said, she intends to talk with De la Rocha before the meeting, and is “well aware of Bycel’s problems with the FPPC.” She added, “It has been of concern to me, I can tell you that.”

Fisher said she has no position on the matter as yet: “All I know is we have a confidential personnel matter and I haven’t been told what it is. As far as Friday, I won’t know until I get there.”

Meanwhile, Councilman Mike Feuer, chairman of the City Council’s Rules and Elections Committee, which has some oversight functions regarding the Ethics Commission, said he feels it “imperative and only appropriate” for De la Rocha to consult with him and his committee before taking any action to fire Bycel.

“I want to focus on a continuing ethics reform agenda and I want to be sure we do nothing to distract from that agenda,” Feuer said. “I’ve had a very constructive relationship with Ben Bycel and with the commission and I think that relationship is fundamental. . . . I’m obviously very concerned that we sort out all the facts on this.”

With a full-time staff of 16 and an annual budget of $1.1 million, the commission has made a strong impression on city government, uncovering wide-ranging laundering of campaign funds in local elections, fining one firm a record $895,000 for arranging secret contributions and advising a wide variety of officials, including Riordan, on how to avoid conflicts of interest.

The commission also wrote a law regulating lobbying activities and successfully fought for its adoption by the City Council and approval by the mayor. And it has implemented the city’s new public financing law during election campaigns.