Police Chief Under Fire in West Covina

The West Covina City Council is expected to hear tonight about how its mayor flashed a city badge and confiscated the license of a motorist after a fender-bender in Los Angeles more than a year ago.

At issue during tonight’s closed door session is not Mayor Ben Wong’s conduct, but how the incident was handled by officials, including Police Chief John T. Distelrath.

As the months have worn on, the furor surrounding the incident on the Harbor Freeway has thrown this San Gabriel Valley suburb into turmoil.

Top leaders give different accounts of how the matter was handled, police officers grumble that their department is devoid of leadership and local leaders worry that City Hall woes could distract officials from their pro-development agenda.

At the same time, City Hall is undergoing an apparently unrelated exodus of top officials: four top city administrators have retired or have taken other jobs, leaving critical voids in administration. Even the city manager has applied for another post.

Tonight, the City Council will begin to unravel the municipal mess involving the mayor and the chief, who has been on leave since last month while under internal city investigation for an unrelated conflict-of-interest allegation.

“The problems in City Hall have astonished me beyond belief,” said former Mayor Forest Tennant. “It looks like the Keystone Kops are on duty here.”

In a December 1996 memo to City Manager James Starbird, Distelrath said he passed the Wong matter to a prosecutor in the local branch of the district attorney’s office, who determined there was no crime.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. David Demerjian--who is Wong’s neighbor--said he told Distelrath that the case fell under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles city attorney. An official with the city attorney’s office said the office has no record of the matter.

Wong said that his wife knows the Demerjian family and that their children attend the same school. “Unfortunately it makes it look like more than it may be,” Wong said.

Distelrath said Monday that the city has ordered him not to comment on the issue.

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According to Wong and police documents, the mayor’s car bumped into a car driven by Pomona resident Oscar Bocanegra on a freeway in November 1996. Bocanegra said that after arguing about the damage, he “bumped” the side of Wong’s car with his fist as Wong got into his car to drive off.

Wong then jumped out of his seat, flashed his city-issued badge--which identified him as a city councilman but looks somewhat like a police badge--and demanded Bocanegra’s license. Wong said he never identified himself as a police officer, but he could see how Bocanegra could mistake him for one.

“It wasn’t the brightest thing to do,” Wong said of his actions.

City Councilman Steve Herfert said the accounts of how the matter was handled are confusing.

“Someone is not telling the truth here,” Herfert said. “We will get to the bottom of this matter.”

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Along with the Wong incident, the City Council tonight will also hear more about another long-running municipal controversy in this diverse and development-minded suburb of 103,000--the conflict-of-interest allegation against the police chief.

Tipped off by a series of anonymous faxes sent to city officials, City Atty. Elizabeth Martyn has been investigating the chief’s hiring of Sonnie Faires, the president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce, to help manage the Police Department’s field shooting and driving simulator training programs.

Distelrath hired Faires in May 1995, the same month he, Faires and a former West Covina police officer filed papers to create a lecture services company.

Martyn said Faires was paid more than $50,000 over two years by the city for her Police Department work, even though there was no formal bidding process for her job. Faires was fired by the city in October after council members uncovered the payments and asked Martyn to investigate. Faires refused to comment.

Distelrath in December said he never benefited financially from the lecture services company and said Martyn’s investigation was a political witch hunt. “If I erred in judgment, I erred in the good end to promote skills of women,” he said last month.

While the matters have taken their toll throughout City Hall, the turmoil is most strongly felt at the police station. Officers say basic needs are being neglected. For example, they say only five of their 26 cars have working computers--and this in a department that has garnered national notice for marketing its computer services to outside agencies.

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.