Ethics Panel Asks Cityhood Official to Register as Lobbyist

The Los Angeles City Ethics Commission has asked Larry Calemine, the official in charge of drafting plans to break apart the city, to register next week as a paid lobbyist or explain why he shouldn’t have to.

Calemine is the full-time executive officer of the Local Agency Formation Commission for Los Angeles County, the autonomous agency weighing cityhood proposals for the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and the harbor area.

On the side, he runs a private consulting business.

In a letter released Friday, Bruce Aoki, director of the Ethics Commission’s lobbying disclosure program, told Calemine the consulting work “may require you to register as a lobbyist.”

“This letter is to remind you that the city’s lobbying ordinance regulates persons” who are paid to try to influence city decisions, Aoki wrote.

Developers and others have paid Calemine tens of thousands of dollars for advice on winning City Hall approval of real estate projects in the Valley, The Times reported last week.

In one case, lawyer Rob Glushon said he and Calemine lobbied City Councilman Hal Bernson to support a zoning change for a Spectrum Club Fitness Center parking lot in Northridge. Calemine was paid more than $10,000 for his work on the project, records show.

In his letter, Aoki questioned Calemine’s fees on the Spectrum project and the annual salary of more than $10,000 that he collects from Porter Ranch Development Co., the builder of a sprawling housing and commercial project in the northwest Valley.

Aoki gave Calemine until next Friday to register retroactively as a lobbyist and file disclosure reports for the time he “should have been registered”--or to “provide a detailed written explanation about why you believe you are not required to register.”

Calemine said he would not register.

“There’s just no evidence at all anywhere that I’ve ever conducted myself as a lobbyist,” he said in an interview. “It just doesn’t exist. And when all the chips fall, everybody’s going to know that I’m not.”

He refused to comment on Glushon’s statement that he and Glushon lobbied Bernson.

“I don’t want to get into details and respond to unsubstantiated rumors and innuendoes,” he said.

Calemine is paid $100,000 a year by the Local Agency Formation Commission. He is the most powerful official in shaping how Los Angeles will be divided if voters approve secession proposals for the Valley, Hollywood or the harbor area. His outside consulting work has raised concerns that the public interest in a secession proceeding might conflict with the interests of Calemine’s clients.

The nine-member commission that oversees his work decided Wednesday to review Calemine’s consulting business at a closed meeting March 13.

Under city law, anyone who is paid at least $4,000 in a three-month period for lobbying activities must register with the Ethics Commission. Lobbyists must disclose who pays them, how much they are paid and why. They also must name the agencies they lobby.

Commission’s Rules on Lobbyists

The Ethics Commission defines lobbying as “direct communications” with city officials, “providing advice or recommending strategy” to a client, researching an issue or monitoring public meetings of city officials. It applies to efforts to influence both legislation and agency decisions, including zoning changes.

In an interview last month, Calemine, a former commercial property manager, said he offers advice to out-of-town builders unfamiliar with City Hall or to Los Angeles clients who need a zoning specialist.

“There are times when people come along and say, ‘Hey, look. We want to get a site going,’ ” Calemine said. “I give them my good advice.”

Among Calemine’s clients in 1998 was Kamber Group, a firm headed by lobbyist Harvey Englander. It paid Calemine a consulting fee in the range of $1,001 to $10,000 for advice on winning City Hall approval for MiniMed Inc., an insulin-pump maker, to build a facility at Cal State Northridge. “I recommended who the right people are they should be talking to, and so on,” Calemine told The Times in January.

Failure to file lobbying disclosure reports is punishable by fines of up to $5,000 per violation or triple the amount of the undisclosed lobbying fees.