Building Inspectors Investigated, Official Says

One day after revealing that the former president of the city’s Building and Safety Commission is under criminal investigation for alleged conflicts of interest, city officials said Thursday that they are conducting a broader probe of whether several building inspectors have taken bribes or approved projects that did not meet required standards.

Arthur C. Devine, executive officer of the Building and Safety Department, said his office has been examining how inspectors do their work and whether several projects were approved when they should not have been. He would not provide any details.

“I can say nothing about it until the investigation is completed,” Devine said. “I just don’t want to compromise where we are.”

Devine would not say whether the investigation is connected to the Police Department’s conflict of interest inquiry concerning Scott Z. Adler, the former commission president.

Police and city officials said Adler, a lawyer and land developer whose Bel-Air firm collected $325,000 over the last year for lobbying city officials, is suspected of a conflict of interest for his court representation in January of a Koreatown bar manager who was fighting building department fines.

Adler abruptly resigned his post last week after being searched by police during an investigation of allegations that he solicited a 17-year-old prostitute while impersonating a police officer.

Neither Adler nor his attorney returned phone calls seeking comment.

City Hall sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the broader probe of the department involves a handful of employees, is almost complete and has been conducted off and on for several years.

One source said the investigation resulted in the arrest in March of one building and safety employee.

Police said the man, who checks building plans for the city, was caught on videotape accepting a bribe of several hundred dollars in connection with permits for a beauty shop. Late Thursday, police would not comment on the case.

Devine, the No. 2 official in the Building and Safety Department, said the LAPD’s bunco-forgery division is also investigating alleged wrongdoing by building inspectors. But LAPD Cmdr. Tim McBride said “there are no current investigations involving building and safety personnel.”

Meanwhile, revelations about Adler’s alleged conflict of interest have revived questions at City Hall about whether registered lobbyists should be allowed to serve on citizen commissions.

“It’s very distressing. Especially in an era when the public is so distrustful of government, any perception of conflict of interest is damaging--much less if it’s proven to be real,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick. “Perception of a conflict is as bad as the reality. Maybe we should just make everybody’s life easier and not have registered lobbyists as commissioners.”

Council members Mark Ridley-Thomas and Mike Feuer introduced a motion in April on the subject of banning commissioners from lobbying city officials. Commissioners and other policymakers are already precluded from lobbying their own agencies and from lobbying any city agency for one year after leaving public service.

The matter is scheduled for hearing by the Ethics Commission and the council’s Rules and Elections Committee later this month.

Representatives of the mayor’s office said the question of whether lobbyists should serve as commissioners merits consideration, but he defended the selection process. “One commissioner and his behavior, whatever it is, is not descriptive or indicative of all 200-and-some commissioners,” said Robin Kramer, Mayor Richard Riordan’s chief of staff.

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Times staff writers Jim Newton, Josh Meyer and Peter Hong contributed to this story.