Ethics

The Ethics Commission on Thursday approved in concept a plan to prohibit city commissioners from being paid to lobby other Los Angeles officials, part of a series of reforms considered in the wake of recent investigations of conflict of interest and other wrongdoing by a Riordan administration appointee. "Its purpose is, fundamentally, the restoration of public trust in government . . .

Nasty personal attacks. Mean-spirited jokes. Even physical assaults. Is this any way to run a City Council meeting? The head of the Orange County Parliamentarians doesn't think so. Robert Johnson, president of the local chapter of the National Institute of Parliamentarians, an organization that promotes education and use of parliamentary procedure, says the boorish behavior is giving the city a black eye, and he wants it to stop.

The chairman of a House committee investigating the FBI files controversy made a new and broader request for White House documents Monday and escalated his warning that White House Counsel Jack Quinn might be cited for contempt unless these and other records are produced promptly. "The conflicting unsupported explanations put forth have not answered many of the serious questions about why almost 500 confidential FBI files were improperly requested by White House officials," Rep. William F.

In an effort to promote ethics instruction in schools, the City Council has authorized sending two city staff members to a special training program next month. The council approved spending $5,400 for two people to attend the Josephson Institute of Ethics training session in Los Angeles County on March 5-9. The course will include a national program called Character Counts.

The Orange County Retirement Board will meet Thursday to review its handling of beleaguered former administrator Mary-Jean Hackwood, who was accused of abusing her authority by forcing employees to run personal errands. The meeting comes a month after the board voted to demote Hackwood to portfolio manager and rent a separate office for her in an effort to reduce contact with other pension system employees.

Dismayed that the three lead prosecutors in the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial were awarded $43,000 in bonuses, a senior county prosecutor has formally requested that they give the money back. In a letter dated Feb. 14, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dinko Bozanich asserted that the bonuses were "unauthorized, unlawful and illegal." As public employees, he wrote, prosecutors are paid only a "fixed and certain" salary.

Emperor Elementary School is different from most others. Teachers at the Temple City campus rarely raise their voices in frustration. Children queue up silently after recess, with hardly a word from their instructors. Administrators settle squabbles between children by admonishing them to remember the school's code of conduct: Treat everyone with respect. On the playground, many older students volunteer to play with the youngest ones.

The Orange County Retirement Board, criticized by some for accepting golf games, meals and other forms of largess from companies doing business with the pension system, plans to reform its gift policy, officials said Tuesday. Though the scope of reforms has yet to be worked out, some board members said they favored reducing the maximum value of gifts they may receive from a single donor to a level below the state limit of $280 per year.

Ending a 17-month investigation, the state ethics commission cleared Mayor Richard Riordan of conflict-of-interest allegations Wednesday, finding that the mayor never knew that one of his votes would mean big money to a company in which he was a major shareholder. The decision concludes a prolonged review by the state's Fair Political Practices Commission into his dealings with the Pasadena engineering firm of Tetra Tech Inc. Riordan was never interviewed in the probe.

In the vast expanse of cyberspace, the city of Los Angeles occupies the electronic equivalent of a well-stocked information booth, offering photos of animals born at the zoo, listings of civil service jobs and news releases touting City Atty. James K. Hahn's latest court victories. Elsewhere on the Internet, Burbank provides agendas for upcoming council meetings and a link to "real time" traffic reports to help constituents avoid problems on the way to meetings.