Ousted Ethics Panel Head Given Contract : City Hall: Commission approves a $52,000 consulting package for Benjamin Bycel. He agrees not to file suit.

The Los Angeles Ethics Commission on Friday agreed to a consulting contract worth six months salary for Benjamin Bycel, the founding executive director who was abruptly ousted by a divided commission last month.

Bycel will be paid almost $52,000 in exchange for dropping plans to file a defamation of character lawsuit over his controversial dismissal. He will also be available to advise the commission staff, which he recruited when the agency was launched almost five years ago.

The agreement, announced after a closed-door meeting on the matter, came after nearly a month of tumult for the commission in the wake of Bycel’s firing Oct. 20.

Councilman Mike Feuer defended the settlement but criticized the “bad judgment and deficient process” that made it necessary.

“The city lost a high-quality executive director. He has something of value to offer, so [the contract] is appropriate, but we should not have gotten to these circumstances,” Feuer said Friday.

Bycel served at the pleasure of the commission and therefore was not entitled to severance pay, but Feuer and other supporters felt he deserved something and wanted the city to have his services during the search for a new director.

The dismissal was engineered by Mayor Richard Riordan’s recently appointed commission president, Raquelle de la Rocha, who said she wanted to exercise the commission’s right to choose someone else for the position, but she declined to discuss her reasons, citing Bycel’s privacy rights and the possibility of litigation.

Under Bycel’s leadership, the fledgling commission came to be regarded as one of the premier anti-corruption agencies in the United States. But Bycel’s aggressive, outspoken style alienated many, including the state Fair Political Practices Commission, which a year ago refused to work with the city agency any longer, and Riordan, who had complained about Bycel’s approach.

Since the firing, Feuer has proposed changes that would dilute the mayor’s power on the five-member citizens commission overseeing the ethics laws. Feuer has also called for adding a process for formal, regular evaluation of the director’s performance in hopes of avoiding a repeat of the seemingly capricious nature of Bycel’s dismissal.

The commissioners considered the proposals Friday, but did not formally vote on them. They generally liked the idea of electing their own president instead of having the mayor choose one, as is currently the case, but were critical of the proposal to strip the mayor of one of his two appointments to the five-member board.