Where in the World Is Alatorre?

There’s a children’s show on public television called “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?” It’s a geography detective show in which contestants follow clues and try to pin down the ever elusive Carmen. City Hall appears to have its own version of this game, only with Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre as the star.

Alatorre is not only a powerful member of the council but a key board member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Records show that Alatorre has personally helped solicit large sums--from businesses, lobbyists and others seeking contracts with the city and the MTA--for two charities that he championed. The charities exclusively hired an events firm established by Alatorre’s wife, Angie. Alatorre and his wife have denied any wrongdoing and say she is now just a key executive of the firm. And indeed there is no question that many children have benefited from the charities’ programs.

Now, that said, consider these facts as outlined by Times staff writers Robert J. Lopez and Rich Connell:

* The charities that the councilman helped create--El Sereno Youth Development Corp. and Feliz Navidad Project Inc.--have in recent years paid more than $225,000 in commissions to Eventfully Yours, the company that Angie Alatorre established in 1987. At the same time, at least two companies that Alatorre has backed for public jobs--TELACU Industries and Cordoba Corp.--have directly paid Eventfully Yours monthly retainer fees totaling thousands of dollars.

* The two charities and Eventfully Yours have repeatedly failed to fully disclose their financial activities as required by law.

* Alatorre personally intervened with a City Hall regulator on behalf of Eventfully Yours after the firm’s license to raise funds was canceled because the business failed to file financial information about its operations.

* On its federal income tax returns, El Sereno Youth Development Corp. listed three $100,000 donors in 1993. One of them, International Escrow in Montebello, actually contributed nothing. Another listed as having donated $100,000, real estate investor Han Huskey, said he contributed only about $30,000. The rest, he said, was donated by two parties who were his business partners in the sale of a skid row hotel to the city, which paid for the purchase with city tax dollars. Weeks before that donation, Alatorre helped shepherd the deal through the City Council, despite warnings from some city analysts that the price for the hotel may have been too high. Huskey and one of the partners, Ben Karmelich, said Alatorre did not solicit the donation to the charity. They said they could not recall how, out of all the charities in the city, they came to donate to El Sereno.

* El Sereno Youth Development Corp. later acknowledged having made an error. It wasn’t International Escrow that made the $100,000 commitment, the charity said, but rather TELACU--the Eastside conglomerate with longtime ties to Alatorre.

TELACU was part of a team backed by Alatorre but ranked last by the MTA staff as a candidate for a big subway contract. Despite the staff ranking, MTA Executive Director Joseph E. Drew recommended the TELACU team anyway, after it made a $20,000 donation to a golf tournament benefiting El Sereno Youth Development. Drew later withdrew the recommendation, but the controversy was part of what led to his resignation last December. It’s possible, we suppose, that all of these developments are incredible coincidences. The MTA inspector general’s office isn’t saying; it is investigating the charities and is no doubt seeking answers to a string of troubling questions about where Richard Alatorre is in all of this.