Ethics Panel Broadens Its Sights

When Los Angeles city officials sandwiched the offices of the voter-created Ethics Commission between two fast-food restaurants in an underground shopping mall, it was hard not to read their decision as expressive of a wish: out of sight; out of mind.

But things didn’t quite work out that way. Today, the 7-year-old commission is more than ever on the minds of the elected officials and bureaucrats who work directly overhead in City Hall and--particularly--on the minds of lobbyists who are paid to influence decisions there.

In the 20 months since the appointment of Executive Director Rebecca Avila, the Ethics Commission has subpoenaed and sued one of the City Council’s most powerful members, levied the largest fine ever against a former mayoral candidate, and held an unprecedented administrative hearing over whether another councilman misused public money to purchase Hollywood Bowl season tickets.

Now, Avila and the five commissioners are turning their attention to City Hall’s multimillion-dollar lobbying industry, looking for ways to tighten the controls under which it operates. Lobbying, which the commission tracks on a quarterly basis, is big business at City Hall. In a report released Wednesday, the commission recorded $2.2 million in payments to lobbying firms from July through September of this year. Of that amount, $183,413 was paid to lobbyists for their work in securing City Council approval for a new downtown basketball and hockey arena.

At its meeting today, the watchdog agency will attempt to clarify precisely what constitutes “lobbying” under city statutes. But while Avila and the commissioners see this exercise as an opportunity to strengthen Los Angeles’ ethics laws and extend their reach, the nervous lobbyists are looking for a way to turn the process into an examination of the commission itself.

Their spokesmen say the professional lobbyists are being singled out for scrutiny by the commission, and that its staff should spend more time enforcing laws rather than trying to expand their jurisdiction.

“The Ethics Commission is no longer in its infancy,” said lobbyist and political consultant Steve Afriat. “They’re being more aggressive, a little more rigid. Now they need to cut some slack to those of us who are complying with their laws, and pay attention to those who aren’t.”

But the commissioners and their staff say they need to further clarify the ethics ordinance, touted as the strictest, most comprehensive such law in the country. Now, a lobbyist is defined as anyone who receives at least $4,000 during any three-month period for “engaging in direct communication with a city official in an attempt to influence municipal legislation.”

Avila would like to retain that definition, but adopt restrictions on the kinds of political contributions those covered by it could make.

Many professional lobbyists would like to eliminate the dollar threshold. They think the ethics statute should be amended to subject anyone who attempts to influence decision-makers, including homeowner and neighborhood groups, to the same strict financial reporting requirements imposed on lobbyists.

The lobbyists are not the only critics of the ethics statute, which not only regulates the conduct of elected officials, top city employees and lobbyists, but also requires that they publicly disclose certain financial information. Some officials believe that the latter requirements are too broad. An aide to Mayor Richard Riordan said some of Los Angeles’ top community and business leaders have turned down requests to serve on city commissions--citing the disclosure guidelines as their main reason.

Seven years ago, such disclosures were very much on the minds of voters, who passed the ballot proposition enacting the ethics statute after a series of conflict-of-interest scandals and allegations of rampant cronyism during former Mayor Tom Bradley’s last term.

Since then, the commission has scrambled to enforce campaign finance and lobbying laws, conduct secret investigations and audits, and levy fines against violators.

Avila is the commission’s second director; her predecessor, Ben Bycel, was fired after criticism of his aggressive personal style and enforcement tactics.

Avila was roundly supported when she was selected for the job in April 1996, in part because she was viewed as someone who could renew the commission’s tenuous relationships around the Civic Center. But she and her staff have remained an object of suspicion among those they are required to regulate.

“They have a responsibility and I believe they should carry out their job--no more and no less,” said an unusually terse City Councilman Richard Alatorre, who was subpoenaed and fined by the commission over allegations that he made a telephone call last year attempting to secure a license extension for a small company that employed his wife as a key executive.

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Councilman Hal Bernson, the target of the Hollywood Bowl ticket investigation, was less restrained: “A monster has been created. I really believe that.”

Avila says the commission by its nature must remain apart from the clubby atmosphere in the corridors of City Hall--literally and figuratively. (Describing the underground location of her office, she says proudly: “It’s easier for whistle-blowers. They’re not seen coming or going.”)

But critics and commissioners alike also point to Avila’s low-key style, in marked contrast to her predecessor and mentor Bycel, as the reason the commission is now more respected--if not exactly embraced--in City Hall.

“We decided we weren’t going to be the neighborhood preachers,” said commission president and USC journalism professor Edwin Guthman, a former national editor of The Times. “We decided to do what’s required of us. My sense is that Rebecca and the staff are respected by the council for being professionals about their work.”

Even Alatorre agrees. “She’s a no-nonsense woman,” he said. “I don’t have a problem with her.”

What makes lobbyists and some city officials nervous is less the personality of the Ethics Commission’s director than the way in which she operates.

Jim Sutton, a San Francisco attorney who was hired by a group of Los Angeles lobbyists to protect their interests as the commission reexamines the law, said, “There are plenty of players who aren’t complying with the laws. Is it that they don’t know about the laws or is it that they are choosing to ignore them?”

That issue was raised recently by local lobbyist Clark Davis, who told the Ethics Commission that “multitudes” of lobbyists are working the halls and offices of City Hall without registering with the commission.

Davis, who represents such clients as Shell Oil, AMPCO System Parking and Laidlaw Transit Services, said he and other lobbyists have no incentive to comply with rigorous city requirements when others are lobbying unencumbered by those same rules.

And while the commission says it is stretched thin, Avila acknowledges that since its inception, the agency hasn’t brought a single action against a lobbyist who has not registered.

“I share their frustration,” said Avila. “It’s a serious concern to us. It’s important that the council and the mayor beef up our enforcement staff.”

The commission has not been afraid, however, to tackle high-profile politicians and candidates. Last year, it fined former mayoral candidate J. Stanley Sanders an unprecedented $31,000 for campaign contribution violations. The staff is now conducting a confidential audit of the office and campaign accounts maintained by Councilman Mike Hernandez, who was arrested and charged with felony cocaine possession this summer.

Avila also is pushing for more training of lobbyists and city officials--so everyone is clear on the city’s laws, including conflict-of-interest regulations. In fact, the commission may make such training mandatory for lobbyists.

The commission also is set to examine whether lobbyists should be banned from donating any money to the campaign and/or officeholder accounts of the council members they are trying to influence.

“If the past is any guide,” Avila said, “we’ll have people screaming about that one, too. But I think people understand that we’re not trying to pull any punches. We’re just reform-oriented.”