CALENDARS SHOW FREQUENT PRIVATE MEETINGS WITH REPS.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

The daily calendars of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Council members provide a window on an interconnected web of influence at City Hall.

The Daily News conducted dozens of interviews and reviewed hundreds of documents to piece together a number of such meetings since last July.

After former Councilman Martin Ludlow was named to lead the influential 800,000-member Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, in July, he met at least three times with council members: President Alex Padilla on Aug. 19, Ed Reyes on Oct. 20 and Herb Wesson on Dec. 9.

Ludlow said he wasn't lobbying - which would have violated city ethics laws that mandate a one-year ban after a member leaves the council. He said he has long friendships with the council members and was talking with them about personal matters.

He said union leaders who represent the interests of working people are different from ``professionally trained, hired guns that come out of a firm somewhere that have gone to lobbyist school and are trained to represent an industry.''

Ludlow's predecessor, the late Miguel Contreras, was for years the region's labor kingpin and airport commissioner under former Mayor James Hahn.

Contreras was not required to register as a lobbyist and Ludlow said Contreras ``hardly ever showed up in council chambers.''

Julie Butcher, head of Service Employees International Union, Local 347, which represents thousands of city workers, is on the city's Quality and Productivity Commission, as an appointee of the council's Budget and Finance Committee.

Butcher had numerous contacts with city officials during the year, among them July and August meetings with Council members Tom LaBonge and Wendy Greuel to discuss creating a new Office of Public Safety that would include members of her union.

The office, championed by Greuel to consolidate hundreds of city public safety officers, was backed by the union but had encountered objections from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and others who said it lacked sufficient civilian oversight.

Butcher said she doesn't put enough hours in each quarter to meet the city's $4,000 threshold designating lobbyists. The union's State Council, which is registered in Sacramento, does meet the state requirement.

``We're just complying with the law. ... We don't have an interest in going beyond the law but we're absolutely committed to following the law,'' she said. ``We're not actively trying to avoid registering. Full disclosure, collectively, is our best bet in government in general.''

Former Councilman Richard Alatorre - who attends some council and committee meetings and is sometimes seen talking to current council members in the council chamber - is not registered as a lobbyist.

Alatorre met with Councilman Ed Reyes and Marco Aguilar, the co-founder of Academia Semillas Charter School on Oct. 27, after the school retained Alatorre to help it pursue a joint-use project with the city.

``Being an outsider to city politics, ... we retained him to navigate through the city's corridors,'' said Aguilar, who declined to say how much Alatorre was paid.

Alatorre said he was not lobbying. ``They paid me as a consultant,'' he said. ``No, I didn't lobby - all I did was attend a meeting. They were the ones who made the case. I didn't make the case.''

Reyes said he didn't consider that Alatorre was lobbying.

``I don't believe he was lobbying. I believe he was shedding light on the nature of the school,'' Reyes said. ``He wasn't telling me to do X, Y, Z; he was describing the nature of the school.

``For me, lobbying is pushing a position. I believe that's what lobbyists get paid for.''

A major coup for the nonprofit Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy was a community benefits package negotiated in 2001 as part of a new sports-and-entertainment complex known as l.a. live.

The group's executive director, attorney Madeline Janis-Aparicio, led the campaign for the package, and the organization was instrumental in getting public-benefit packages in conjunction with a plan by former Mayor James Hahn to modernize Los Angeles International Airport.

Janis-Aparicio, who Villaraigosa reappointed as a commissioner to the Community Redevelopment Agency board, said she and her organization conform to city rules and that she registered as a lobbyist during the living-wage fight.

There is a ``wall'' now, she said, between her CRA position so she only talks to city officials on agency business.

``It is a burden on me, and our organization, not being able to lobby,'' she said.

Janis-Aparicio, a former lawyer for the politically powerful firm Latham & Watkins, said nonprofit groups have a broader social mission. ``We're not a hired gun,'' she said.

Attorney Neil Papiano is not a registered lobbyist, but he met Nov. 1 with Councilman Tom LaBonge's for a 1 p.m. chat at the upscale Pacific Dining Car restaurant.

LaBonge said the meeting was to talk with a representative of a New York company about a proposed Hollywood Boulevard development just south of his district.

Papiano, who represents the landlord who holds the ground lease in the deal, said the developer's representative had asked for an introduction to LaBonge.

``(He) asked if I could introduce him to LaBonge, and I did. I wasn't paid a dime,'' said Papiano, who said he only does legal work.

``I never consider myself as a lobbyist,'' he said. ``As part of legal work, you do talk to people in office, as necessary. In general, I talk about if there are some legal problems or some difficulty. I don't take them to dinner.''

LaBonge said he didn't consider Papiano to be lobbying for the project. As LaBonge recalls, ``He was informing me about the project.''

Ben Reznik, a registered lobbyist who represents the New York-based Clarett Group on the development, said he's done the ``heavy lifting'' lobbying on the project.

He said Papiano's meeting was a ``courtesy.''

Alex Padilla said his July 6 lunch with Papiano was to ask him and his clients for support for the Children's Museum at Hansen Dam.

Attorney Douglas Mirell, appointed by the mayor to the city's Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, also is not required to register as a lobbyist.

Mirell was a plaintiff's attorney along with the American Civil Liberties Union in a 2000 federal case that barred Los Angeles police from stopping homeless people without probable cause.

Mirell, an attorney with Loeb & Loeb in Century City, said he's not been involved in city politics, and accepted the commission position, in part, because he has never attempted to influence the outcome of municipal legislation.

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California and also not required to register as a lobbyist, also was appointed to the commission.

Ripston said a federal tax-law provision allows only a few of its staff to lobby. She said the organization would register if required by the city.

``If the law was changed, we'd comply,'' Ripston said.

Beth Barrett, [phone]

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com