REVISED ETHICS PANEL: WATCHDOG OR WIMP?

Byline: Patrick McGreevy Daily News Staff Writer

A year after the Los Angeles Ethics Commission ousted Ben Bycel as its director, critics are questioning whether the agency is still the vigorous government watchdog that voters created five years ago.

Bycel, who had garnered both praise and criticism for his aggressive enforcement efforts, was fired in October 1995, shortly after Mayor Richard Riordan appointed attorney Raquelle de la Rocha as the commission's president.

Critics now say they think the mayor effectively clipped the commission's wings, pointing to the fact that in the 13 months since Bycel's removal, there have been no enforcement actions that have resulted in fines.

``The commission was created because people wanted a watchdog over the system,'' said Wendy Wendlandt, associate director for the California Public Interest Research Group, a political reform group.

``It certainly seemed like the intent of (Bycel's) removal was to remove the teeth of enforcement by removing the person who was agitating,'' she said.

In the three years before Bycel's firing, the Ethics Commission completed enforcement actions against 50 individuals and companies that paid a total of $789,496 in fines for violations including the laundering of political contributions and exceeding contribution limits.

Since Bycel's removal, there have been no enforcement actions that have resulted in fines. Commission officials had said to watch last week for their first action since Bycel's departure, but the commission agenda came out with no actions on it and none was taken last week.

State Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles, said the commission is not meeting the mission set for it by the voters.

``The Ethics Commission is nowhere near fulfilling its mandate,'' Hayden said. ``It's the mouse that failed to roar. They just don't do anything.''

De la Rocha and Ethics Commission Executive Director Rebecca Avila said they are committed to strong enforcement. But they said they also are putting emphasis on efforts to get public officials to voluntarily comply with ethics rules.

The emphasis on education and working to achieve voluntary compliance may be why there have not been the large number of fines that were imposed in past years, de la Rocha said.

``We are just as tough on enforcement but very much geared to gaining compliance,'' she said. ``We are just as aggressive as always, but our goal is not to keep tallies and numbers. . . . Our main goal is compliance.''

Avila said she realizes that the commission's record under Bycel raised expectations for the panel. But she said the commission continues to work as a watchdog despite the lack of enforcement actions.

``I think it's right for the public to be demanding vigorous enforcement,'' Avila said. ``I'm dedicated to that. But these things take time and people have to wait for the results.''

However, two officials with other investigative agencies who have dealt with the Ethics Commission said the panel is a ghost of its former self.

``We don't see them out chasing the big guys who are raping the system,'' said an investigator for one agency, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Both officials said the Ethics Commission seems bogged down in performing routine and broad-scale audits of every campaign committee, instead of focusing on where evidence indicates abuses are taking place.

Hayden, who is considering a run for mayor, called Riordan's appointment of de la Rocha a ``hostile takeover'' of the commission aimed at disarming an aggressive enforcement agency.

``The mayor has rampant conflict-of-interest disease, but instead of curing the disease by changing his actions, his cure has been to try to take over and silence all of the bases for investigating that conflict, including the Ethics Commission,'' Hayden said.

Mayoral chief of staff Robin Kramer denied that Riordan sought to influence the commission on Bycel or any other issue.

``Neither the mayor, nor anyone else in his office had anything to do with the previous matter,'' Kramer said.

De la Rocha engineered Bycel's ouster, saying the panel could no longer trust its executive director after hearing complaints that some of Bycel's tactics were improper.

The state Fair Political Practices Commission at one point refused to continue working with the Ethics Commission, saying Bycel had backed out of a proposed settlement and had released details of the case to the press the day before the FPPC was to announce the settlement.

There were also charges that Bycel tried to intimidate witnesses, leak information to the press or interfere in another agency's investigations, all of which Bycel denied. He said to this day he does not know why he was fired.

In his first detailed interview since his ouster, Bycel charged that de la Rocha lacks the vision and leadership to guide the agency.

``I believe that today the Ethics Commission works in spite of her, not because of her,'' he said.

Bycel said that from the beginning Los Angeles politicians did not expect an aggressive agency to take hold in the city.

When the ballot measure that created the panel was approved by voters, despite the fact that the council attached to the measure an amendment tying their salaries to those of municipal judges, the city's political leadership was shocked, Bycel said.

``I don't think they fully accepted that there would be this aggressive agency to watch them,'' he said.

The original appointments to the five-member commission endorsed an aggressive enforcement effort, said Bycel, comparing de la Rocha to her predecessor, Dennis Curtis.

``He had a commitment to a strong Ethics Commission,'' Bycel said. ``I don't think she has a particularly strong commitment or focus or vision.''

According to some observers in and outside the commission, the panel is still suffering from the effects of the bitter dispute.

``The whole thing with Bycel was so traumatic that they just have been backing away from anything that is controversial, and that is tragic,'' said Xandra Kayden, director of the UCLA Policy Forum and part of a task force that drafted the ballot measure that created the Ethics Commission.

Kayden questioned whether de la Rocha came out of the controversy over Bycel's firing with enough credibility to lead the panel.

``I think it's a problem of weak leadership,'' Kayden said. ``I don't think Raquelle can carry the commission with her.''

As a result, Kayden said, many of the important ethics reforms under consideration are coming out of the City Council, not the Ethics Commission.

Charter Amendment E, authored by City Councilman Mike Feuer and approved by voters Nov. 5, took away one of the mayor's two appointments to the five-member member Ethics Commission and removed the power of the mayor to appoint the commission president.

``I certainly think the approval of ballot Measure E sends a strong signal about the voters' demand for a vigorous and independent commission,'' Feuer said.

He said his reason for writing the measure was to allay concerns over the possible perception that Bycel's ouster was the result of the mayor exerting undue influence over the commission.

De la Rocha denied that the mayor influenced the commission on Bycel. She said the charter amendment drafted by Feuer is ``politically motivated,'' noting Feuer was a Bycel ally.

Sources said Bycel and his staff had clashed with the Mayor's Office before de la Rocha's appointment, including when the agency tried to set rules for mayoral chief of staff Bill Ouchi, whose salary was being paid through the University of California, Los Angeles, by special interest donors.

But De la Rocha said it was Bycel's actions that caused a crisis in confidence for the commission.

``The commission was no longer able to trust its executive director,'' she said, adding that Bycel seemed overly interested in grabbing headlines and publicity.

The cases pursued by Bycel involved some high-profile people and firms, including attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. the law firm of former Police Commission President Melanie Lomax, and the Police Protective League.

``I think we've been more than effective,'' said de la Rocha. ``But we're still trying to recover from that (Bycel era). The reputation of the commission is still in the process of healing.''

She said that officials from other agencies, including the FPPC, felt uncomfortable with Bycel's style and stopped cooperating with the city agency, which has hindered its efforts.

An example is the lawsuit filed by the FPPC last month seeking to fine former mayoral candidate J. Stanley Sanders for allegedly using campaign funds to pay rent at his law offices.

The FPPC action caught the city Ethics Commission off balance, according to sources, who said the city agency still is trying to wrap up its own investigation of Sanders' actions.

Sanders has not returned calls for comment on the lawsuit.

In contrast to the flood of high-profile cases announced at news conferences by Bycel, Avila has taken a low-key approach to the job.

Avila said critics do not know what the commission is doing in confidence to investigate allegations of ethics violations, so they cannot properly judge the panel.

She said the investigations take a lot of work and the commission is understaffed. Avila said she plans to ask the council for authority to expand enforcement staff from two to three people to handle the caseload.

Still, the critics, with Hayden at the forefront, noted that the state FPPC was the agency to press forward with a prosecution of former Councilman Art Snyder for political money laundering, even though the Ethics Commission first initiated the probe.

The Snyder case is pending.

Whether or not the commission's new approach is working, Hayden seems to be staking out ethics as a possible issue.

Two months ago, he sent the commission a set of false teeth to protest its ``toothless'' refusal to investigate whether Mayor Riordan had a conflict of interest in approving the increase in a contract for an architectural firm that is a tenant in a building Riordan co-owns.

The Ethics Commission said conflict-of-interest rules are under the jurisdiction of the FPPC, which did fine Riordan $3,000 for the conflict.

Councilman Nate Holden said he thinks the commission is doing a good job of balancing enforcement with education.

``I don't think they are a do-nothing commission. I think they are being smart,'' Holden said. ``They are not trying just to find someone to prosecute. They are trying to get compliance. You don't have to prosecute to be effective.''