Hahn Supporter Admits Breaking Finance Rules

The former president of the Los Angeles Convention Center Commission and the hotel he operates have agreed to pay $7,637 in fines for violating campaign finance rules while raising money for Mayor James K. Hahn, according to documents released Thursday.

Peter Zen, president of a firm that owns the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, has signed a stipulation with the executive director of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission in which Zen admits that he and his hotel violated the city’s $1,000 contribution limit in Hahn’s 2001 mayoral campaign.

If approved by the Ethics Commission on Tuesday, the Zen and Bonaventure fines will bring to more than $83,000 the penalties levied against Hahn and contributors for campaign irregularities during the 2001 election.

“I don’t think I deliberately did anything wrong,” said Zen, who until last March was Hahn’s appointee to the city commission that oversees the Convention Center.

In explaining the settlement, Zen added: “As usual, these things cost a lot of money to defend.”

The settlement agreement signed by Zen and LeeAnn Pelham, executive director of the Ethics Commission, was released Thursday, along with a report that supports the findings of violation.

During the 2001 election campaign, Hahn campaign organizer Ron Low, currently the mayor’s appointee to the city Public Works Board, coordinated campaign events at Zen’s hotel, including a phone bank from which volunteers made more than 10,000 telephone calls promoting Hahn to voters, according to the ethics report.

After the Bonaventure contributed $1,000 to the Hahn campaign, the hotel also provided the campaign with $12,000 in discounts on telephone calls made by campaign workers there.

Investigators said the discounts were $6,000 greater than those afforded the general public. That $6,000 was deemed in violation of the contribution limit law, so the hotel was fined that amount.

Zen also admitted to a second violation in spending $2,637 on a campaign fundraiser for Hahn, an amount in excess of the $1,000 limit imposed on him for a contribution.

Pelham declined to comment. The report attached to the settlement agreement stated that Zen had said any violations had been inadvertent and that he believed the discounted price charged for the phone calls had been a fair-market value.

Former Ethics Commission Chairwoman Miriam Krinsky said the fines appeared justified, and said it was important for the panel to enforce the contribution limits “to ensure that elections aren’t controlled by deep pockets.”

Neither Zen nor Low was a city commissioner at the time of the violations.

Zen said he has since been host for another fundraiser for Hahn, but not while serving as a city commissioner. The City Council is considering a measure that would ban city commissioners from engaging in fundraising.

Hahn was fined $53,522 last September for 64 campaign violations, including the receipt of excessive contributions from Zen.

Twenty-nine companies and other individuals were also fined at the same time.

Hahn declined to comment, a spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, auditors for the Ethics Commission released reports Thursday that concluded the 2001 campaigns of Councilmen Jack Weiss and Dennis Zine appeared to have violated campaign laws.

Weiss’s campaign failed to provide the Ethics Commission with copies of 33 mass mailings it sent out, while his political officeholder committee failed to report eight expenditures totaling $1,534 for meals and flowers, auditors said.

Zine’s campaign requested and received $2,665 in excess matching funds from the city and failed to verify that several sets of contributions had not violated campaign contribution limits.