DHS FACES INVESTIGATION IN ASSEMBLY; ROCKETDYNE CASE PROMPTS PROBE.

Byline: Terri Hardy Sacramento Bureau

A legislative committee will investigate the state Department of Health Services to determine if the agency cooperated with Rocketdyne company officials to try to control a community health survey, officials said Monday.

Assemblyman Scott Wildman, D-Burbank, chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, said his group will investigate whether the department improperly suppressed a cancer survey of residents around the Santa Susana Field Laboratory and planned with Rocketdyne to get rid of an independent panel overseeing health concerns at the lab.

The Daily News reported Monday that internal records from DHS files show the agency worked with Rocketdyne in an effort to get rid of the independent oversight panel and hand-pick a group of replacements.

Wildman said the disclosures revealed ``a lack of enforcement and arguably collusion'' by the DHS, and prompted his decision to conduct an inquiry of the state agency.

Wildman said he intends to use his committee's report as the basis for additional investigation by the state auditor and to provide information for the administration of Gov. Gray Davis in restructuring the agency.

``Everywhere we look we are finding massive problems with DHS,'' Wildman said. ``The circumstances surrounding Rocketdyne appear particularly egregious. We need for people to be held accountable and if they end up losing their jobs, that's what needs to happen.''

Also on Monday, Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Encino, renewed her call for the governor to fire the three top officials who oversee health investigations involving Rocketdyne. She urged the governor to immediately appoint a DHS director, a position now vacant, to ``clean house.''

``(Davis) needs to state that its mission is about health, and not about protecting those companies it is supposed to be regulating,'' Kuehl said.

Kuehl supported Wildman's call for a broad investigation into DHS by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.

Boeing chairman and chief executive officer Philip M. Condit, in Los Angeles on Monday to address shareholders at the company's annual meeting, had not seen the report in the Daily News but disputed claims officials were trying to get a handpicked panel.

``Everything I have seen says that that is not the case. Period. Everything I have seen says we believe we have addressed that carefully and continue to address that carefully, and I have no other information than that,'' he said.

Boeing owns the site on which the Santa Susana Field Laboratory is located.

In the past, Rocketdyne officials have vehemently denied any collusion with the DHS. However, they said they believe the citizen's committee, which includes scientists and other technical experts, should be replaced with panelists whose backgrounds include more environmental experience.

Wildman said in his position on the legislative audit committee he has heard of other instances where the DHS allegedly suppressed reports or failed to protect public health.

An audit, to be released in June, will look at how the DHS ``blocked'' needed outreach to Medi-Cal patients in Los Angeles County, Wildman said.

``That resulted in tens of thousands of people losing their health care,'' Wildman said.

Wildman's committee put out a recent report that showed the DHS failed to identify and track those children with lead poisoning - resulting in the children never receiving proper medical screening.

Daily News Staff Writer Gregory J. Wilcox contributed to this report.