Questions Around Alatorre

There’s a good reason that politicians should hold themselves to a high ethical standard: Favors done for them tend to smell to high heaven. Tuesday’s report in The Times by Rich Connell and Robert J. Lopez on Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alatorre’s home purchase is a case in point; it ought to provide plenty of raw material for examination by the city Ethics Commission.

The tangle of transactions that ended with Alatorre’s purchase of a $280,000 house in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of his district is dizzying. The tale begins with a problem familiar to Southern Californians in 1996. Alatorre apparently wanted to buy a bigger house but was saddled with payments for a condo worth less than when he bought it. How he allegedly solved the problem is less familiar and hardly passes the test of those who ask, “Could I get the same treatment?”

* Alatorre received a $2,800 payment from an associate of Samuel S. Mevorach, a developer who was seeking millions of dollars in city financing so he could sell a rundown apartment property. The payment, according to the associate, was part of a fake lease on the condo, designed to increase the councilman’s chances of getting a loan.

* The councilman failed to report that payment as income on his city conflict-of-interest forms as required by the city ethics law.

* When a buyer was finally found for the condo, it was a real estate appraiser with financial ties to Mevorach.

* All this time, Alatorre consistently backed the city-financed purchase of Mevorach’s property, despite questions about the price of the apartments.

Both Alatorre and Mevorach have denied any wrongdoing. Yet there remain a lot of questions that require more answers than the councilman has provided thus far.