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From the Daily News:
An editorial in Tuesday's paper, "Turf war costly," incorrectly reported that the City Attorney's Office hired an outside law firm to sue the city controller in a fight over a workers' comp audit. The city attorney is handling that legal fight in-house.It was the city administrative officer that hired the outside firm to defend six city attorney employees who were subpoenaed by the city controller as part of her attempt to conduct the audit over the objections of the city attorney. The point of the editorial, however, that the city has to hire outside counsel to deal with this intra-City Hall fight, remains correct.
Meanwhile, Controller Laura Chick sent around a letter giving her side on the ongoing tensions between her and City ASttorney Rocky Delgadillo:
There has been discussion in the press about a “fight” between the City Attorney and myself. I’m writing to personally update you regarding this issue.In fact, the disagreement is over the City Controller’s charter-mandated responsibilities to conduct performance audits. Section 261 (k) of the City Charter clearly says that the Controller shall “conduct performance audits of all departments and may conduct performance audits of City programs."
Despite this language, the City Attorney has formally interpreted the charter to prohibit the Controller from conducting performance audits of programs if they are housed in elected officials’ offices.
The City Attorney has sued me to prevent my proceeding with an audit of his Workers' Compensation program. The only appropriate resolution is to now turn to the Los Angeles Superior Courts.I have exhausted all other options, including trying to have this matter placed before the voters on the March ballot, which the Council refused to do.
Yesterday, the City Council asked me to “stand down” in my attempt to have the Charter clarified and refused to give me paid legal counsel for my defense against the City Attorney’s lawsuit. This is a fight over transparency and accountability and your right to know how your government is spending your taxpayer dollars. I will not back down or step aside. I will pursue this fight so the people of Los Angeles can have clarification once and for all on this important issue.