CORRUPTION WATCH-I don’t mean to even suggest LA City Councilman Paul Krekorian is crooked, but there’s plenty of evidence the system he’s part of is.
Not crooked as in “Go directly to jail, do not collect $200,” but ethically dicey.
As reported in this newspaper, the president of the union that represents Los Angeles firefighters, Frank Lima, ponied up a personal check for $1,000 dollars to the “Friends of Paul Krekorian,” a fund designed to retire the campaign debt from Krekorian’s failed 2000 Assembly race. A few days after Lima’s check arrived, and the same day Krekorian met with firefighter union officials, the union itself kicked in an additional $5,000.
In the radio business it’s called payola. In politics, it’s called civic involvement.
Over the past five years Krekorian’s “friends” have contributed over $80,000 dollars so the City Councilman could pay himself back for money he loaned his campaign after losing an Assembly race 15 years ago.
So who are Paul Krekorian’s friends?
The usual suspects: unions, lobbyists, and companies bidding on city contracts, including Athens Services, a trash hauling company that forked over $4,000 seven months after Krekorian and his council colleagues created exclusive garbage monopolies, one of which Athens is hoping to secure.
Under city ethics rules, these contributions are illegal.
Individual and corporate donations are capped at $700 per candidate, and without a trace of irony, $1,300 for a politician’s legal defense fund. So how is it Krekorian can rake in north of $80,000 from special interests who do business with the city?
Easy. These contributions are paying off a campaign debt from a state race not a city election, so they aren’t subject to city ethics rules.
We all know it takes money to run for office. Those door-hangers we immediately throw in the garbage and TV commercials slandering the opposition with half-truths and outright lies don’t produce themselves.
Still, the idea that the firefighters union suddenly cares how the bills from a failed assembly race from a decade and a half ago will get paid without hoping for some future service from Councilman Krekorian not only strains credulity it runs the risk of tagging the councilman as “Cash n’ Carry Krekorian.”
If we look at politics as a business — and we’d be nuts to see it in any other light — Paul Krekorian’s failed run for the state Assembly was an investment gone bad. No shame in that. Lots of successful businessmen suffer a failure or two before finding success. But outside of politics, I can’t think of an industry where a failed owner can hit up people he does business with for a tax-deductible donation to bail him out of the red.
By LA standards, Krekorian is a modest collector of campaign cash. Still, hitting up union officials, the unions they represent, lobbyists and corporations bidding on city contracts — all technically legal — creates the impression the councilman’s office has a barcode on it. In a city with 8 percent voter turnout, that’s the wrong impression to make.
(Doug McIntyre is morning radio host at KABC and writes for the Daily News … where this column was first posted. Doug can be reached at: [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 32
Pub: Apr 17, 2015
