The Chick/Delgadillo Fight: Enough!

Today the Los Angeles City Council will vote on whether or not City Controller, Laura Chick, may be given $100 grand from the city’s cash cookie jar to hire a lawyer to defend herself against the lawsuit filed against her by LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo.

Originally, it was just the members of the council’s Budget and Finance Committee who were going to vote up or down on the allocation for the controller. But the committee members got cold feet at the last minute and decided that, gee, really it was the whole council that ought to be considering the $100,000 for Chick’s defense.

Insiders tell me that it is expected to be a NO vote. (But politics is a mercurial biz, so you never know. The winds could reverse themselves.)

Rocky has sued Laura specifically in order to keep her from auditing his office’s workers compensation program, an audit that he says would violate the City Charter. Laura Chick then hired an attorney to defend her in the suit, namely the lawyer who helped squash Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s bid to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District. Delgadillo has already hired an outside attorney of his own.

(It is ironic that one of the things Chick’s audit was expected to look at was the City Attorney’s use of outside attorneys.)

(Also, both Laura and Rocky term out next year so wise persons would be right to think that some of this kerfuffle has to do with future political ambitions.)

Here’s how the Daily Breeze explains it:

The rift between Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and City Controller Laura Chick has gone from being a simple power struggle to one that could very well cost the city hundreds of thousands in legal fees.

And the city doesn’t have money to waste, given how the recession has reduced government revenues.

Chick last week asked Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for $100,000 to hire a private attorney to defend a lawsuit from Delgadillo, who is trying to stop the controller from auditing the city’s workers’ compensation cases.

It seems a fair request as Delgadillo is using an outside firm to sue Chick, despite having a department full of attorneys to direct. Chick needs to defend herself – and the guy who would normally defend a city official is on the other side.

A reasonable request, yes. But what’s beyond reason is how one politician’s refusal to submit to the oversight that every other municipal department and elected official is subject to will cost the city’s taxpayers.

The turf war began earlier this year when Chick, who has been vigilant in finding waste and abuse throughout City Hall, turned her eye to the City Attorney’s Office. Specifically, she wanted to examine how the city’s workers’ compensation cases are handled and settled.

But Delgadillo resisted, claiming that the controller has no right to do performance audits on other elected officials

[SNIP]

Seeing as how the city spends millions on the workers’ compensation cases handled by Delgadillo’s office, it appears to be an “account” that ought to have some outside review.

Indeed, Erwin Chemerinksy, who chaired the city’s Elected Charter Reform Commission, advised in a letter to Chick that she has authority to conduct the audit.

So enough.

Yes, yes, we all realize that part of the reason Delgadillo is resisting is that he claims this is a political move on Chick’s part. And—-as noted earlier— to some degree he’s right. (How shocking!) But it’s also her job.

Rocky needs to let Laura do the audit and be done with it. In other words, the grown-ups need to start behaving like grown-ups.

The city can’t afford anything else.