Ethics group members told to watch words

Ethics group members told to watch words

BY KERRY CAVANAUGH, Staff Writer
LA Daily News

Excluded from the race to put a term-limits/ethics reform package on the ballot, the Ethics Commission found itself silenced Tuesday when members finally got a chance to discuss the proposal to change lobbying rules and give the City Council a third term.

Vice President Bill Boyarsky kicked off the discussion by asking how the ethics reform measure on the Nov. 7 ballot would affect the city's existing rules.
"So instead of strengthening the lobby control laws as the proponents of this measure have claimed, could it be said that it actually weakens it?" Boyarsky asked after staffers advised him that some lobbyists might be exempted from registering under the new rules.

But Deputy City Attorney Renee Stadel interrupted him to warn that, because the ethics package has already been placed on the ballot, city employees or public resources cannot be used to support or oppose it.
And that includes using "valuative adjectives" during an Ethics Commission hearing.
"I am concerned that by using words such as `strengthen' or `weaken,' it becomes an advocacy on either side of the issue," Stadel said.
Chastened, Boyarsky continued his technical questions on the measure, choosing his words carefully.

He later said the council's decision to put the measure on the ballot before seeking Ethics Commission input "took us out of the ballgame."
Critics of the ballot measure complain that the proposals were never vetted or voted on by the Ethics Commission.

The commission was supposed to consider it July 31, just days before it went to the council. But the session was canceled when President Gil Garcetti couldn't make it and there weren't enough members present to legally hold the meeting.
While Boyarsky previously has said he opposed the ethics/term-limits package, Tuesday marked the first time the commission was able to review the proposed legislation with staffers.

Tied to the term-limit extension is a series of proposals to toughen the city's ethics laws, limiting the role of lobbyists in raising campaign contributions and serving on city boards and commissions. It also would extend from one year to two the length of time for which a former official would be prohibited from lobbying a city agency.

Also Tuesday, the commission issued $48,200 in fines for various campaign-contribution violations, including those to former Mayor James Hahn and Councilman Tony Cardenas.

Secretary Dolores Valdez was fined $41,000 for aiding attorney Pierce O'Donnell in soliciting and laundering 21 illegal contributions to Hahn's 2001 campaign.
O'Donnell admitted making $26,500 in contributions under various names and was fined $147,000 by the commission March 14.

Since May, 21 people who agreed to be reimbursed by O'Donnell for making contributions to the Hahn campaign have been fined $500 to $2,000 each. City laws allow a person to make a $1,000 maximum contribution per candidate in each election cycle.

Valdez was the last person to face fines from the commission regarding the matter.
On Feb. 2, O'Donnell pleaded no contest to five misdemeanor charges of improper identification of campaign donors.
O'Donnell was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to pay $155,200 in fines and penalties.

City News Service contributed to this story.
kerry.cavanaugh@dailynews.com
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