Disclosures Spur Call for Inquiry on City Land Sales

Amid disclosures that have raised new concerns about Mayor Tom Bradley’s official conduct, two members of the Los Angeles City Council said Monday that the city’s Real Estate Department should be investigated to determine whether abuses have occurred in the sale of public land.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said he plans today to ask the city administrative office to launch an audit of the obscure department, which controls and sells surplus properties that are no longer of use to the city.

Yaroslavsky said his audit request was prompted by a report in The Times that Bradley intervened with city officials to help a political contributor, Long Beach businessman Allen E. Alevy, obtain vacant inner-city property for commercial development.

Wants to Know

“If there have been any other instances of this type, I want to know about it,” said Yaroslavsky, chairman of the council’s Budget and Finance Committee. “The best thing that could come out of this audit is to find out that it has never happened before. But we can’t make that assumption.”

In a letter to Chief Administrative Officer Keith Comrie, the Westside councilman asked for an audit of all surplus property sales during the past five years to ensure that they were handled in accordance with city policy.

“I am deeply troubled by recent news reports indicating that surplus city properties may have been improperly sold or offered for sale without public auction,” Yaroslavsky wrote.

Councilwoman Gloria Molina, meanwhile, said she has directed her staff to study the way in which the city sells its excess real estate.

“We need to correct a process,” she said, “where you can make a (telephone) call and get around good city policy.”

Expedite Efforts

On Sunday, The Times reported that Bradley personally called at least one top real estate official to help expedite Alevy’s efforts to buy two city-owned lots on East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard that span nearly two blocks.

He obtained one property with the help of Bradley’s council ally Gilbert Lindsay but was denied the second parcel after city financial analysts concluded that the property should be sold on the open market for a possible higher price.

According to public records and interviews, the mayor also intervened with city officials on Alevy’s behalf in connection with a dilapidated trailer park he owned in an area of Wilmington zoned for industrial uses. For years, the city Building and Safety Department had been trying to gain Alevy’s compliance and close the facility.

In one case, Bradley obtained a six-month extension for Alevy to comply. In another, a city official said Bradley ordered her to stop pushing Alevy to finance the relocation of his trailer park tenants and to “get out of it.”

In the end, Alevy, failed to close the park and was convicted on misdemeanor charges of violating zoning regulations. On Sept. 12, he was sentenced to 24 months’ probation and fined $4,500.

Through a spokesman, Bradley has denied any improprieties, saying that he was simply assisting a constituent in his role as the city’s chief executive and trouble-shooter. The spokesman insisted that Bradley granted the six-month extension not only at Alevy’s request but also at the urging of tenants, who feared that they would be left homeless if the park were closed.

Around City Hall, Alevy has earned a reputation as a man who flaunts his ties to Bradley in an effort to influence city officials who have battled him on various issues. He denies the allegation.

Alevy has diverse business and real estate interests. He once secretly owned a notorious Signal Hill massage parlor and has a minor criminal record.

Contention Disputed

Alevy has said that Bradley was aware of his involvement with the now-defunct parlor, but that contention was disputed by the mayor’s press secretary.

Although the city attorney’s office said Monday that Bradley apparently violated no laws in his advocacy of Alevy, some council members said the affair has heightened ongoing concern about the mayor’s judgment and whether his friends and business associates receive preferential treatment.

“For the mayor, it’s not good news,” Molina said of the latest disclosures. “It’s a situation again of doing favors for people who do favors for him.”

Yaroslavsky said he has been trying to give the mayor “every benefit of the doubt” but that it is “becoming increasingly difficult because I question the appropriateness of his office to direct civil servants not do the job they are sworn to do.”

Councilman Mike Woo, who heads a special committee on government ethics, said there is nothing “inherently wrong” with helping a political contributor.

‘Massage Parlor’

“The problem,” he said, “is the massage parlor and (Alevy’s) legal problems. Obviously, this is very embarrassing to the mayor.”

Said Woo, “If I had gotten involved to the extent that the mayor did with Alevy, I would have required some research” on his background.

But Councilman Ernani Bernardi took the broadest view of all.

“This goes on all the time,” he said of the red-carpet treatment politicians give political donors and associates. “Not just with Bradley, but every council member engages in it.”