CHICK SAYS DELGADILLO ATTEMPTING TO HALT PROBE TWO ALLIES CLASHING OVER PROPOSED AUDIT OF LEGAL BILLS.

Byline: James Nash Staff Writer

In a rare battle between political allies, Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick accused City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo on Thursday of trying to stymie a probe into the soaring cost of outside lawyers he hired to work for the city.

Chick said Delgadillo broke a deal reached last August to allow her to conduct a thorough audit of outside legal bills. The deal was reached to head off state Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Van Nuys, who is running for mayor, from using the state's Joint Legislative Audit Committee to review possible abuses in Los Angeles' hiring of outside lawyers.

Although Delgadillo vowed at that time to cooperate with Chick, his office wrote a letter Wednesday saying attorney-client confidentiality and the city charter precluded her from conducting a thorough audit to determine whether the city was getting its money's worth on nearly $30 million-a-year in payments to outside lawyers.

``The double-talk, the stalling, the postponing and new interpretations of the city charter and arguments over attorney-client privilege all amount to one thing: He doesn't want the public to see what's going on,'' Chick said.

Delgadillo denied trying to thwart Chick's review of outside legal bills, which have swelled from $14.2 million in 1999-00 to $29.6 million in 2003-04. The outside attorneys are hired by city agencies to handle particularly complex or specialized legal cases.

``I'm ready and willing and able to have the controller audit my office pursuant to the charter,'' Delgadillo said. ``We're ready, willing and able to go.''

Chick said the narrow fiscal audit Delgadillo wants is unacceptable when a full performance audit of whether taxpayers are getting their money's worth is needed. She intends to refer the matter to the state's Joint Legislative Audit Committee, which has the power to conduct detailed audits of city agencies.

In his letter to Chick, Assistant City Attorney David Michaelson wrote that scouring cases and legal opinions could undermine the city's position in pending lawsuits and potentially reveal confidential information to other parties. Chick said reviewing the performance of the lawyers is critical to determining whether the city is getting its money's worth.

Many of the outside attorneys have been hired by the city's three proprietary departments - Los Angeles World Airports, the Port of Los Angeles and the Department of Water and Power - on highly technical cases, Delgadillo said.

A review of those cases was part of the review proposed last summer by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, which also is probing whether the city can tap the DWP for one-time ``supplemental'' transfers of revenue. The transfers have come under fire as hidden taxes from neighborhood councils and some officials, including Alarcon, who requested the state review of the practice.

Charlene Simmons, the chief consultant to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, said the audit of DWP transfers is expected to be complete later this month.

Joint Legislative Audit Committee chairwoman Nicole Parra, a Democratic Assemblywoman from the San Joaquin Valley, could not be reached for comment.

The committee's vice chairman, state Sen. Richard Alarcon, said he was disappointed by Delgadillo's decision to curtail Chick's audit. Alarcon, a Van Nuys Democrat running for Los Angeles mayor, said the state should conduct a full audit rather than having Chick conduct a limited audit.

``I don't understand why the city is balking,'' Alarcon said. ``It's sort of this institutional culture of the city not wanting to open up. Needless to say, I'm quite disappointed and surprised that the city attorney has taken this position.''

James Nash, [phone]

james.nash(at)dailynews.com