Holden Criticizes Wachs Over Use of City Mailers

Breaking from the norms of City Council decorum, two Los Angeles lawmakers on Tuesday blasted each other for allegedly wasting taxpayer funds.

Councilman Nate Holden called a news conference to accuse colleague and mayoral candidate Joel Wachs of abusing the city’s mass mailing system in an effort to expand his name recognition outside his own district.

Holden--who is supporting City Atty. James Hahn for mayor--claims Wachs misused city funds by sending two neighborhood service directories and a pamphlet on the city’s new neighborhood council program to thousands of households across the city.

Fighting back, Wachs criticized Holden for spending $45,223 in taxpayer funds on a new Lincoln Navigator 2000. He also questioned expenditure of city money used to successfully defend Holden against sexual harassment lawsuits.

“Every council member gets exactly the same budget,” Wachs said. “Some, like Mr. Holden, choose to spend it on expensive cars, on trips, on public relations people. I saved mine and decided to spend it upon a valuable public service to the people.”

Holden scoffed at the allegations, calling Wachs a hypocrite.

“The nerve of him to attack me,” Holden said. “That’s the best way he can defend himself? He is running for mayor on the backs of the taxpayers.

“He represents himself to be fiscally conservative and an advocate of saving taxpayer dollars,” added Holden, who made a similar complaint against Wachs last June. “Of all the 15 council members, he is the only one who has abused the privileges of the taxpayer-supported mailing program.”

Tuesday’s exchange proved to be a deviation from the usual council etiquette. City lawmakers these days tend to treat each other with an excruciating amount of courtesy while saving their venom for the council’s greatest foe, Mayor Richard Riordan.

Holden said that after he received two of Wachs’ mailers at his house over the past week, he decided to once again speak out against his colleague.

“After announcing that he is running for mayor, he sent mailers out citywide, not just in his district where he presides,” Holden said. “Not just one mailer but many different mailings.”

In June, Holden introduced a motion that would require the council’s Rules and Elections Committee to approve any mailing consisting of more than 200 pieces, if addressed to recipients outside a council member’s district. That proposal has been stalled in committee, and Holden now wants to bring it directly before the council.

Holden, in fact, attempted his own unconventional mass-mailing effort two years ago, when he proposed sending 15,000 Mother’s Day cards to female voters in his district with funds from his officeholder account. His effort was rejected by the city Ethics Commission, which found that council members were not permitted to use their officeholder accounts for that purpose.

Wachs defended his mailers as an important resource for city residents. The largest booklet, which runs more than 100 pages, includes extensive listings of city services and departments. It offers telephone numbers and Web sites for a variety of organizations, including legal aid foundations, medical clinics and child care providers. The second booklet focuses on services for senior citizens.

Wachs’ name appears on the cover of all the documents, printed next to the city seal. The mailers have cost his office more than $300,000 to produce.

“They are not only perfectly legal, they were approved in advance by the city attorney’s office and by the state Fair Political Practices Commission,” Wachs said, adding that Holden is “mad I’m doing something that he should have been doing.”

He added that the city spent nearly $2 million to defend Holden against allegations--all of them unsubstantiated--that he sexually harassed former members of his staff.

“He’s full of prunes,” Wachs said. “He doesn’t think anything about $2 million bucks on his legal defense. I’m choosing to spend money in a way that really serves people.”