Still Another Nate Holden Controversy : L.A. City Hall should install a low-cost system to discipline errant employees

Los Angeles taxpayers have shelled out more than $1 million to defend City Councilman Nate Holden and some aides against sexual harassment lawsuits. He was exonerated in one, and the second suit was dismissed. Now comes disclosures of photos, taken four years ago in South Korea during a supposed trade mission, showing Holden with partially clothed women who were dancing atop tables.

Incredibly, he tried this week to blame the Koreans for his own lack of judgment: “That’s the way you do official business there.”

The issue of improper conduct by city employees is one that must be fully addressed. The council should create a system to openly handle sexual harassment cases involving its members, a system that does not require the taxpayers to pick up the accused’s legal bills. Holden’s latest taxpayer-paid court victory came last week when Superior Court Judge Byron McMillan abruptly dismissed charges that Holden had sexually harassed an aide. An earlier sexual harassment suit filed by another aide ended in Holden’s favor.

Council members Jackie Goldberg and Ruth Galanter have introduced a motion that would clarify and strengthen existing procedures to deal with elected officials and managers accused of harassing employees or engaging in discrimination. Under the proposal, employees would have more administrative alternatives for relief, including complaining to the Civil Service Commission and other state and local agencies that deal with inappropriate behavior by bosses.

Proposals heard around City Hall in the wake of the Holden accusations include instituting some sort of peer review panel comparable to a congressional ethics committee. Operating under appropriate checks, the panel could discipline errant members through public reprimands or censure. The political damage to the accused would be heavy punishment in most cases.

The city attorney’s office has interpreted state law as requiring public agencies to pay legal fees for their employees in most situations, though not when the contested action was outside “the scope of his or her employment.” That office in the future must do a better job of reasonably interpreting that statute in individual cases so that the city will never again be in the position of seeming to defend after-hours meetings between a female assistant and a shirtless councilman in his apartment.

No new City Hall rule would keep all sexual harassment claims out of court. But by supplementing the range for action by developing administrative alternatives and/or the possibility of action by political peers, the city could send a powerful message to top officials that they cannot misbehave with impunity.