Newly elected city attorney and city controller off to rocky start

They’ve been in office just two weeks, but there’s already friction between Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel and City Atty. Carmen Trutanich.
 
This week’s scuffle concerns whether Greuel is now the defendant in a lawsuit that former City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo filed against her predecessor, Laura Chick. (Greuel says she is; Trutanich says she’s not.)

In a letter Tuesday, Greuel repeated her request that Trutanich dismiss the lawsuit — an action his office says it cannot take without City Council permission. Greuel has also asked Trutanich to issue a formal opinion saying she has the power to conduct performance audits of any taxpayer-funded city program.
 
“I am the voice at this point in time to say we need to protect taxpayers' dollars,” Greuel said Wednesday.

Trutanich’s chief deputy, William W. Carter, said Greuel’s attempt to get involved in the Chick case was creating a new legal wrinkle. Chick was sued in her official capacity as controller, he said, but the controller’s office was not named in the lawsuit.

“The current controller is attempting to interject herself into a lawsuit, and she hasn’t done so in any formal way,” Carter said. He maintains that Greuel has created “an awkward legal position for herself and the city attorney’s office,” because the city attorney acts as counsel to the controller.

That opinion riled Greuel. She said she learned of it last Friday when the city attorney’s office sent a letter to Chick’s lawyer, Frederic Woocher, stating that Greuel is not a defendant in the lawsuit and that Woocher is not entitled to represent her. Trutanich never mentioned that when he met with her to discuss possible audits of his office, Greuel said.

The root of this brewing political dispute is the power struggle between Delgadillo and Chick, who has moved on to a state post. Last year, after Delgadillo blocked Chick from auditing the workers’ compensation program in his office, she subpoenaed six of his employees. Delgadillo responded by suing her, arguing that she did not have that authority under the city charter. Chick asked the City Council to pay for Woocher’s legal services, but it declined.

During his campaign, Trutanich said he disagreed with Delgadillo’s lawsuit and would welcome audits of his office by the controller. But two weeks before Greuel and Trutanich took office July 1, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney issued a tentative ruling in the case backing the former city attorney. The ruling said Chick did not have the power to audit the workers’ comp program or conduct performance audits of the city’s other elected officials.

Greuel has argued that as city attorney-elect, Trutanich could have done more to prevent the judge from issuing what she called a “flawed decision” that “would set a dangerous precedent by limiting the authority of the city controller.”

Carter stressed, however, that Trutanich cannot act unilaterally without the council’s permission. His office successfully sought a 30-day delay before the judge issues his final decision, Carter said, allowing more time for Trutanich to consult with the council on how to proceed. Carter said the office is exploring how to clarify the controller’s powers under the city charter, possibly through a ballot measure.

Trutanich’s position that the controller has the right to audit programs across the city remains unchanged, Carter said, but he added that the judge’s interpretation of the city charter would now have to be part of the discussion.

“Our immediate focus was to deal with the ticking clock of the litigation. We had these real time constraints about whether a final judgment would be issued,” Carter said. “We were trying to stop that clock from ticking so parties to the lawsuit could sit down and rationally discuss how to move forward on these audits.”

-- Maeve Reston

Comments

[susan]

Trutanich has pulled a fast one on Wendy Greuel, his duped supporters and the whole city.

He made it a HUGE part of his campaign platform that he would support Chick in the lawsuit against Delgadillo so that she could audit ALL other elected officials when she chose or found it appropriate - and said he opposed Delgadillo's position, and Chick threw her support to Trutanich solely based on that.

When the Council had tried to deter a lawsuit by asking Chick to wait a month or two to hash it out with Delgadillo, or to put it on the ballot, she flat-out refused and said she was going ahead with the lawsuit for that very reason, so that it would NOT be put on the voters as their burden to decide.

Chick demanded that Trutanich take sides and he flat-out told her AND the media and EVERY debate forum that he would make it his first priority to see that the Controller be able to audit ANY dept. That that was HIS legal opinion, and he'd to whatever he took to make it stand. I WISH this article had included this history, since Trutanich is relying on the voters to "forget" so that he can go back on his word already just two weeks into office.

Maybe that's because as editorials and even former supporters believe, Trutanich wanted the Controller/ Wendy Greuel to be able to audit ONLY Delgadillo, so he have her 'permission" to do it NOW, but he does NOT want her to audit HIM down the road.

His first DEMAND in office was to insist that he is going to CREATE A 200-PERSON PRIVATE POLICE FORCE THAT ANSWERS TO HIM ONLY, A FORCE WITHIN THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, 'COMPLETE WITH CARS AND EVERYTHING THEY NEED' HE SAID. Outrageous and SHOCKING to gullible supporters who voted for him because he promised to cut expenses -- he NEVER mentioned this, because he knows that it would have infuriated people instead of getting votes.

Instead of keeping his promises, Trutanich has undermined Wendy Greuel as Controller by grandstanding about the Jackson funeral, bellowing at the City Council that he would "gt to the bottom of things" AFTER Greuel had written letters to the appropriate officials demanding to know how the memorial was authorized without concerns about cost -- but without acknowledging this, Trutanich and his friend Dennis Zine have interjected themselves as forefront in the issue by making AEG and the Jacksons as "villains" in this drama. That has infuriated AEG which helped pay for the Lakers parade just as a goodwill effort, and strained relations with the Mayor.

Trutanich has also flat-out insulted the CRA and threatened to sue them because they didn't bow to his demand -- which flew in the face of advice from the City Attorney's office and a looming deadline. Now volunteer commissiones are offended and qualified people may be reluctant to volunteer.

By catering ONLY to the kinds of rightwing, anti-Democrat people who went out in droves to elect him, the rightwing am radio and anti-Villairaigosa blogosphere, Trutanich has offended virtually everyone and gone back on his key campaign promises, so that even former supporters are expressing concerns that they have been duped. Like, yeah!

[svivar9087]

Geez.....No wonder California is in the shape it is. We have a generous Mayor on vacation , while Californians scramble to cash these bogus IOU’s, in order to be able to pay employees.
And if that’s not enough he comes back refreshed from his vacation, while we stayed behind working the skin off our fingers to tell us OUR hard work will pay for MJ funeral. If that is not enough bleeding us, we now find out that our illustrious City Attorney and controller bicker like spoiled little children, instead of earning their pay helping those they represent. I wish there was a magic powder I can sprinkle on these pompous politicians , that would give them a glimpse of our hardship and pain, that seem to get heavier every day.

[Rich]

Please Ms. Greuel....DO NOT TURN INTO ANOTHER SOUR, POLITICAL GADFLY LIKE THE OLD CHICK.
THE CITY NEEDS SOMETHING NEW ,NOT MORE OF CHICK'S SMEARS!

[DonJMac]

EITHER THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER IN CITY HALL,OR
ALL THE CROOKS THAT COME TO CITY HALL ARE LIERS TOO, AND DON'T CARE WHAT THE TAX PAYERS THINK. WHEN THEY GET THEIR OORR, THEY BECOME GOOD FRIENDS WITH MAYOR TONY V, IF THE LAST IS TRUE WELL,
THE REST SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

[Patty]

What is the city council afraid of? Have some of the workers' comp cases been funneled to some of their buddies to handle (at major fees)? It sounds like the city has been holding on to some unwinnable cases, which will end up costing the City so much more than simply settling the ones that are the fault of the City (yes, Virginia, not every WC is fraud....but the city is guilty of fraud in some of those cases).