Audit Targets Port Panel

City Controller Laura Chick, citing an “open disdain for good government,” criticized the commissioners and staff who oversee the Port of Los Angeles on Thursday for failing to implement reforms outlined in an audit two years ago.

The Board of Harbor Commissioners has neglected to adopt a formal policy for awarding shipping leases, even though the port staff drafted a policy more than a year ago, Chick said Thursday as she released a follow-up audit.

In an unusually vociferous response, Commission President Nicholas G. Tonsich called Chick “unqualified and politically motivated” and disagreed with her findings.

The issue illustrates the problems that await Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa at the port, which recently lost several top managers and suffered an unexpected slowdown in cargo growth. A state probe of alleged “pay-to-play” schemes at the port is continuing.

Villaraigosa’s staff is reviewing the audit, Joe Ramallo, a spokesman, said Thursday.

It “just underscores the need for swift action at our port to improve management and accountability,” Ramallo said. “The mayor-elect views Laura Chick as a partner in doing that.”

Villaraigosa has recruited Chick’s chief of staff, Marcus Allen, as deputy chief of staff in charge of budgeting. He is expected to replace some or all of the five port commissioners, who were appointed by outgoing Mayor James K. Hahn.

Chick’s June 2003 audit found that the port was awarding long-term leases for berths in a secretive process. Port officials told the auditors that staff members “instinctively ‘know’ which company would fulfill the selection requirements.”

At the time, Chick said the port appeared to be operating “more like the backroom than the boardroom.”

The new audit found some improvements, such as restructured leasing evaluations and the creation of negotiation teams.

It praised the port for undertaking a formal request for proposals for a potential tenant on Terminal Island.

But the port needs to take additional steps, such as offering more guidelines for when firms are exempted from competitive bidding and developing procedures for evaluating leases, the auditors wrote.

The audit states that, although the port released a draft of its formal leasing policy in November 2004, a policy has not been approved by the Harbor Commission. The auditors asked to meet with the commission three times this year but got no response, Chick spokesman Rob Wilcox said.

Tonsich said in an interview that he received no such requests.

“Only someone as unqualified and politically motivated as Laura Chick could claim that the largest, most profitable port in the U.S., which achieved and maintains the highest bond rating of any port from every major bond-rating agency, is being mismanaged,” Tonsich’s statement concludes.

Chick declined to respond.

Port spokesman Arley Baker said in an e-mail that “the port has been following the guidelines of its draft leasing policy for the past year or more, so the policy has been put to practice.”