When Robert Aguallo Jr. retired as general manager of Los Angeles' largest city pension agency, he went out with a flourish rarely afforded such department heads at City Hall.
Six weeks before he left government, Aguallo staged an elaborate send-off for himself at the California Club, where attendees paid $1,000 or more per person to dine on crab cakes and filet mignon -- with proceeds going to a scholarship that would bear his name.
To drum up contributions, he hired a party planner, providing her with lists of potential donors. Included were dozens of business leaders who had sought or secured millions of dollars from the pension fund during the five years he ran it.
Using the city's e-mail system, Aguallo hit up a few donors himself, asking them to sponsor a table for as much as $10,000. At least four other city employees also took time from their workdays to organize the bash.
Details of the March 27 event appear in nearly 400 city e-mails from the Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System, or LACERS. The messages, obtained by The Times under the state's public records law, show LACERS employees performing an array of party-related tasks, such as choosing the menu and reviewing the inscription planned for a commemorative "whisper cut" crystal bowl.
Aguallo's employees also participated in party planning conference calls, created a five-minute tribute video, reviewed the souvenir program and gathered names of potential donors from their agency's lists of consultants, brokers and other pension professionals.
Under the city's ethics laws, department heads are allowed to collect charitable contributions from city contractors. Such contributions would become illegal only if those contractors received city business in exchange for their donations.
Still, one government watchdog criticized the party, saying companies that wanted to keep doing business with the pension system would have felt pressure to buy tickets.
"The more I learn, the more troubled I am," said Robert Stern, president of the nonprofit Center for Governmental Studies. "It's clear that people feel obligated to give to charities when there are people in positions of power who are asking for the money."
Aguallo is currently under investigation by the city's Ethics Commission over his decision to take a job in April with Cardinal Americas, a firm that had received help from his agency only two months earlier. On May 6, only days after he retired, Aguallo sent e-mails to LACERS trying to influence the amount of fees the city would pay to Cardinal Americas, a move that may have violated the city's "revolving door" ban on lobbying by recently departed city workers.
Aguallo attorney Fred Woocher defended his client's retirement party, saying he "wasn't very involved" in the event. Woocher said Aguallo planned to retire weeks before the party but stayed longer as officials searched for his replacement.
"I don't get what the big problem is," he added. "It happens all the time. If you want to raise money for a charity, you pick an honoree and then you use that person to hit up anyone they know that has money."
At least one city worker sounded ambivalent about being assigned to attend and work the party, lamenting in an e-mail to a colleague that she would likely have to stay until 1 a.m. -- 90 minutes after it was scheduled to end. "I think they're having dancing and a dance floor (god knows why)," wrote pension system employee Debra Fleming.
LACERS manages a $10-billion portfolio on behalf of 45,000 current and former city workers.
Aguallo's retirement bash raised money for a "Robert Aguallo Jr." scholarship to be administered by the Robert Toigo Foundation, a nonprofit that encourages minority students to seek jobs in finance. Toigo said in a statement that it was honored to receive the money from Aguallo, who is vice president of the group's board.
Emceeing the party were pension board president Eric Holoman, an appointee of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and pension board vice president Shelley Smith, a lawyer in the office of City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo who also serves on Toigo's board. Financial professionals whose companies had appeared before Holoman and Smith were asked by party organizers to pay $5,000 for a table of three or $10,000 for a table of five -- sponsorships that gave them entry to a VIP pre-dinner reception.
City Hall retirement parties are typically staged on a considerably smaller scale, with invitations posted on city bulletin boards and attendees paying between $30 and $60 to cover a meal and a gift. Aguallo's event, by contrast, took in at least $150,000, according to documents and interviews, two-thirds of which went toward the scholarships. The rest, according to one e-mail, covered expenses.
Aguallo built a reputation as a champion of efforts to steer pension money to minority-owned companies and to recruit minorities and women into the traditionally white, male world of finance.
