Ellen Stein, the vice president of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works and wife of former Airport Commission President Ted Stein, voted at least four times on matters involving Kaiser Permanente during the years her family profited from the sale of $250,000 worth of sports tickets to the HMO, records show.
In each case Ellen Stein voted with a majority of the board to approve Kaiser requests, which saved the company fees and costs.
Two authors of the city's ethics laws questioned whether Kaiser's ticket purchases created a conflict of interest for Stein that should have prevented her from voting on Kaiser issues.
"If she did know about Kaiser's payments to her husband, she should have recused herself," said Xandra Kayden, a UCLA political scientist who helped draft the city ethics laws. But, Kayden added, "She may not have known about every business deal he is involved in."
Contacted at her City Hall office, Stein declined Wednesday to comment on her Kaiser votes.
Ted Stein, a lawyer, developer and major political fundraiser, holds four season tickets to Laker games and other sporting events at Staples Center through his sole practitioner law firm. The Times reported in February that Kaiser Permanente's director of government relations, Leland Wong, used company money to purchase $250,000 worth of tickets from Stein over a seven-year period.
Ted Stein did not return calls for comment Wednesday, but said two months ago that he sold his tickets to Kaiser for a modest profit because he had more than he could use. The sales occurred between 1997 and 2003.
He resigned last week as president of the Airport Commission amid local and federal grand jury investigations into whether contracting at the airports was improperly tied to political contributions. Stein said he had done nothing improper but felt he could no longer be effective in the job.
Wong resigned in January from Kaiser and from his unpaid post as a Department of Water and Power commissioner after officials at the HMO said he had improperly used company funds for political purposes and provided sports tickets to elected officials.
Wong told The Times at the time that his corporate office bought sports tickets to "build relationships" with community leaders and opinion makers.
