Ethics Panel Chief Keeps Job for Now : Government: Commission debates fate of executive director Benjamin Bycel but takes no action. The panel meets again in two weeks.

The city’s Ethics Commission discussed the status of its executive director, Benjamin Bycel, for nearly an hour Friday behind closed doors, and then its new president, Raquelle de la Rocha, issued a terse statement saying the commission had taken no action, leaving him in the job he has held nearly five years.

But that may be only for now. De la Rocha would not say whether Bycel’s future will be taken up again when the commission meets in two weeks.

Earlier this week, De la Rocha described as “festering” the issue of Bycel’s relationships with the state Fair Political Practices Commission and Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti. Neither has been willing to deal with him for a year and a half after disputes over leaks of sensitive information.

De la Rocha, a UCLA Law School lecturer, again vehemently denied Friday that she had ever told Bycel that she had, in Bycel’s words last Tuesday, “decided that I should be terminated.”

However, Bycel, leaving Thursday for a college speaking engagement in Iowa, issued a statement indicating that it was his understanding that De la Rocha had backed off from any intention to press the issue against him for now.

“President De la Rocha has assured me and I have assured her that we will work together to maintain a strong and effective Ethics Commission under her new leadership,” said Bycel, who denies that he is to blame for the troubles with the FPPC and the district attorney.

Bycel was not at Friday’s closed session. Two of the five commissioners, Edwin Guthman and Teresa Drury, are Bycel supporters, and the two others besides De la Rocha, Ann Petroni and Eve Fisher, are less certain.

“When you have confidential matters, they ought to be confidential,” Fisher said Friday. “I have no comment.” Fisher is an appointee of City Atty. James K. Hahn. Petroni and De la Rocha are appointees of Mayor Richard Riordan. Drury is an appointee of City Council President John Ferraro and Guthman was appointed by City Controller Rick Tuttle.

There have been reports that Riordan and Hahn may be less comfortable with the aggressive enforcement policies of Bycel than Ferraro and Tuttle are, but no one has acknowledged trying to influence any of his appointees, and the appointees say they are independent.

Drury said Friday that she and Guthman have approached the FPPC about healing the breach with Bycel, but officials of the agency were unwilling to meet on the matter.