L.A. councilman wants to halt former officials' legal fight and ask voters to set power of city controller

Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz has asked his colleagues to end the dispute between the city attorney and the city controller over whether the controller can audit programs in the offices of elected officials.

Koretz wants the council to dismiss a lawsuit filed by former City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo to prevent his office from being audited.

But a sticking point remains: who should pay the more than $100,000 in legal fees incurred by former City Controller Laura Chick over the course of her legal fight with Delgadillo, who was forced from office this spring by term limits.

The dispute arose last year when Delgadillo blocked Chick from auditing the workers' compensation program in his office. Chick issued subpoenas to six of Delgadillo’s employees, leading him to sue her. Delgadillo believed she was acting outside the scope of her authority under the city charter by trying to audit the program.

Koretz’s proposal would also ask the city attorney, the city controller and legislative analysts to draft a ballot measure that would change the city charter to clarify that the controller can audit all aspects of city offices held by non-elected officials, as well as some programs in the offices of elected officials.

“The idea is to not to waste time and money continuing this lawsuit, and to create greater transparency and clarity in terms of who the city controller can audit and how,” Koretz said Wednesday. Last year, the council ordered the city attorney and city controller to “stand down” and said no legal bills should be paid “until the matter is resolved.”
 
Current City Atty. Carmen Trutanich has said he does not want the council to dismiss the lawsuit until there is an agreement that the city will not pay attorneys' fees. William Carter, chief deputy to Trutanich, said the office supports Koretz’s proposal and has already drafted language for the charter amendment.
 
“We favor a dismissal if there are waivers of attorneys' fees,” Carter said. “We feel it’s important the city should not have to pay these costs.”

City Controller Wendy Greuel believes that the attorneys' fees should be paid and that the matter should not be a condition of dismissing the lawsuit. A spokesman for Greuel said she believes that the case should be dismissed expeditiously so no additional taxpayer funds are spent but that Koretz’s motion contains factual inaccuracies.

Greuel contends that the council never voted against paying attorneys' fees and simply wanted Delgadillo and Chick to work out their differences.
 
“The two issues — dismissal of the lawsuit and the attorneys' fees -- are not linked together,” Greuel’s spokesman Ben Golombek said. “It’s unfortunate that council member Koretz didn’t work with our office to get the correct information.”

Koretz said he is working with both offices on the details of the proposal.
 
Before Greuel and Trutanich took office, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney issued a preliminary ruling stating that the City Charter did not give Chick the power to audit a workers' compensation program in Delgadillo’s office.
 
Both Chick and Greuel criticized the ruling. The judge has agreed to delay his final ruling to see if the two sides can reach a resolution.

-- Maeve Reston at L.A. City Hall

Comments

[lou]

Koretz is absolutely right: don't let the mere matter of $100,000 prevent the dismissal of this lawsuit.

As Laura Chick told Doug McIntyre on his show (and he strongly agreed then and later), that's just "a smokescreen" because he doesn't want the controller to audit the City Attorney's office under HIM at the Controller's discretion, but will only give Greuel his "permission" to audit the books of former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, who his supporters want to "get." Doug Mcintyre even said he's help kick in for the legal fees of $100,000 and others would, too: it's a small price to pay for transparency.

McIntyre AND other former conservative supporters also pointed out to Trutanich that he had PROMISED Chick that he supported her and her attorney's position on the lawsuit, and that was WHY she decided to support him. (For the record, Weiss supported the Controller's right to audit also, but Trutanich bent over backwards to promise to expedite it REGARDLESS of how the legal ruling came down: as I recall, Weiss and the Council were unanimous in asking Chick and Delgadillo to work things out with Council's help first, was the only objection to a lawsuit, NOT the principle.)

Like Doug and others say, for Trutanich to laud Chick's lawyer as "fighting the good fight" to get her endorsement, then NOW claiming he's "just a loser" the city has to fight, is sheer hypocrisy and evidence of what Chick calls his being a liar and a demagogue. (His claims to have saved the city money on lawsuits so far are largely specious, and his handling more in-house lawsuits in future is contingent on his hiring HUNDREDS of more lawyers, staff and prosecutors while the dept. is already in the red on salaries alone; and he's invited at least two class-action lawsuits.)

[Kelvin]

Isn't it interesting that it's Paul Koretz who has jumped feet first into this complex problem without bothering to check the facts? As the newest member of the City Council, he should have been more careful.
Despite his claim that he is "working with both offices," it seems that the City Attorney's Office was not contacted by Koretz until he filed his motion. At least that's what appears to be the case from William Carter's statement.
Of course the case should be dismissed, but only if the issue of fees can be resolved without the City having to pay the costs of an unnecessary lawsuit. Chick did not have the Council's authority to incur the expense, and the judge simply decided what every legal expert agreed upon - that under the Charter the Controller does not have authority to audit programs run by elected officials. In order to do what Chick wanted to do, a Charter Amendment was needed, and that is what was known before Chick embarked on an expensive course of action that was doomed from day one.
Under the Charter, and elected official can consent to an audit, but does not have to. It's just like the way the US Constitution prohibits the cops from searching our homes; if they don't have a search warrant, then the only way the cops can search is if we let them i.e. we consent. Chick did not have Delgadillo's consent, therefore she could not audit.
Current City Attorney, Carmen Trutanich, has consented to an audit by Controller Wendy Gruel. He did not have to consent - the Charter makes that clear, as does the judge's ruling. But just because Trutanich consents this time, does not mean he, or any other elected official has to consent the next time the Controller want to audit a program.
What everyone who has some knowledge on this topic seems to agree on, is that the correct process is to amend the Charter to give the Controller the power to audit without consent. That's the position of Trutanich and it's also the position of Controller Greuel. The only person 'out of the loop' appears to be Paul Koretz, who really needs to do his homework and redefine his understanding of the term 'working with.' He will find City Hall a very lonely place otherwise.

[Ben]

Truth is, the city charter already allows the Controller to audit ALL taxpayer dollars, where-ever they might be. Do you really think that voters want hundreds of millions of dollars to be unaccounted for and hidden? What was Delgadillo hiding? Honest people don't object to audits--they welcome them. It's as simple as that. He had to have been hiding something (in this case hundreds of millions of dollars of worker compensation dollars) to fight so strongly to keep her out.

Trutanich agreeing to allow Greuel to come and audit is NOT the same because now she'll only be looking at Delgadillo's dealing, so Trutanich has a very east out. This is disingenuous on Trutanich's part and it clearly speaks to his disregard and low opinion of the people that put him into office--that we are soooo stupid that we don't realize what he's doing.

[RichDavid]

Everyone in City government was glad to see chick and weiss leave. They used their office to advance their friends and smear anyone who did not agree with them. It is because of chick and weiss that we ended up with the current mini mayor, the worst mayor in history. They tried to push Rocky but Rocky pushed back. Chich & Weiss abused their power.
Now we have Koretz who is cut from the same cloth. Los Angeles is sick of all these kind of people. Phony and dishonest.