Webster Hubbell

City Controller Rick Tuttle, after supervising an extensive and thorough audit, called a news conference to announce that Webster Hubbell had overcharged the city (the story didn’t say by how much) when he submitted a $24,750 bill for consulting services (June 24). Zealously, the controller also thrust himself right in the middle of Whitewater by forwarding this information to independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

Is it proper to ask how much this audit cost taxpayers? Was it at least less than $24,750? Am I wrong to suspect that this whole thing is really a low-budget performance of “Much Ado About Nothing” with Tuttle, ordinarily a bit player, reaching out for “Starrdom.”

LEO RIFKIN

Long Beach

* Re Xandra Kayden’s June 29 Opinion piece on the Los Angeles Civil Service system: Her comments on the need to preserve the integrity of the system are most welcome. If the controller’s report on the Airports Department contract with Hubbell is not troubling enough, more so is the fact that the airport’s executive director, Jack Driscoll, found it expedient to assist in executing this sham contract. Driscoll headed the Personnel Department for a number of years, the department upholding the city’s Civil Service system.

In exempting department heads and other senior management positions in city government from Civil Service protection, Mayor Richard Riordan has not only increased these managers’ accountability to him, he has replaced their adherence to an admittedly cumbersome but clean governance structure with one of political expediency and the instinct for self-preservation.

The last thing needed to remedy the abuse of power by a mayor, commissioner or other political appointee is not training on roles or rules. Power is the currency of government. Take away power from those who would tamper with the rules governing contracts, personnel selection or other facets of governance, and maybe we would have fewer instances of manipulation. Increasing the risk for political managers affords the best protection for the Civil Service. Charter reformers, take note!

DAVID SMITH