Bradley to Urge Stronger Shield for Whistle-Blowers

Mayor Tom Bradley plans to propose today a strengthening and broadening of Los Angeles’ law protecting whistle-blowers, which had failed to shield a city employee who complained about Sylvia Cunliffe, chief of the General Services Department.

The mayor’s office refused to disclose details of the major revision, scheduled to be announced at a 10 a.m. City Hall press conference. Top officials in the city Personnel Department, the city attorney’s office and the city administrative office--all of whom had a hand in drafting the present law--said they were not consulted by the mayor or his staff in preparing the new measure.

Other officials, however, expect the proposed ordinance to extend protection to employees of private companies holding city contracts if they complain about what they consider improper activities by their superiors. At present, the law deals only with city employees.

The ordinance also is expected to seek to close what city personnel officials said is the biggest loophole in the current law--a lack of enforcement provisions or means of disciplining city officials who retaliate against workers who disclose conflicts of interest, thievery, incompetence or other legal violations or management failures.

The ordinance may contain provisions for rehabilitating the careers of whistle-blowers, who often find themselves ostracized, dumped into dead-end jobs or left in financial trouble after defending themselves in court against angry bosses determined to retaliate.

The mayor’s proposal follows a furor over the fate of Robert O’Neill, a General Services Department real estate officer who made several anonymous calls to a city hot line complaining about what he considered improprieties.

Despite city rules seeking to protect callers to the hot line, which was set up to encourage workers to blow the whistle on errant superiors, Cunliffe learned O’Neill’s identity. She then sent to the mayor and City Council memos seeking to discredit him by calling attention to encounters with the law he had had as a teen-ager.

Bradley suspended Cunliffe and created a three-member panel to investigate the O’Neill affair and allegations of mismanagement against Cunliffe, whom he placed on involuntary leave. City officials said the O’Neill incident pointed up the “toothlessness” of the current law, and Bradley is expected to propose a way of closing the enforcement loophole.

The existing law prohibits city employees from using their authority to “discourage, restrain or interfere” with those reporting alleged law violations, waste of city funds, conflict of interest, using city resources for personal gain or endangering public safety.

But a victim of retaliation has just one recourse--filing a complaint with the Equal Opportunities Section of the city Personnel Department. The section can investigate and report, but has no authority to discipline someone who breaks the law.

Meanwhile, the committee investigating Cunliffe and the General Services Department has begun writing its report, according to its chairman, Robert B. Dodson, a retired partner in an accounting and management firm.

It was unclear whether the report would be made public. Dodson said “our intention is to report to the mayor and it will be his determination whether to make it public.” At a press conference Tuesday, Bradley said, “I can’t speculate on that until I get it.”

City officials told The Times that sections dealing with Cunliffe might be kept secret because of state and city laws closing proceedings and records dealing with personnel matters. But they said that other parts of the report, dealing with management of the department, could be made public.