Supervisor’s Top Aides Voted on Big Donor’s Contracts : Metro Rail: Staffers substituting for Dana backed the Sylmar construction firm’s cost hikes. He says there was nothing wrong with the actions.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana’s representatives voted to approve $45.8 million in contract increases for a Metro Rail builder who was Dana’s biggest campaign contributor during the past two years, public records show.

While substituting for Dana on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, his top aides voted 29 times to approve contract hikes for Tutor-Saliba Corp. of Sylmar in 1991 and 1992. During the same period, Tutor-Saliba Corp. contributed $28,000 to Dana’s reelection campaign.

California conflict-of-interest law prohibits commissioners from voting on permits, licenses and no-bid contracts affecting any of their campaign contributors who have donated more than $250 during the preceding year.

Dana did not personally cast votes affecting Tutor-Saliba. But his aides approved the $45.8 million in contract “change orders” that did not require competitive bidding, as well as $219 million for five competitively bid contracts.

Most of the votes were cast by Dana’s chief of staff, Donald R. Knabe, who also managed the supervisor’s recent reelection campaign. Records show that many of the votes were unanimous. The votes sometimes came within weeks or even days of a campaign contribution to Dana.

Knabe and Dana’s other substitute, Sarah Hirsch, have supported virtually every contract and change order sought by Tutor-Saliba during the last two years. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who also sits on the commission, has criticized Tutor-Saliba’s top executive as a “change order artist” who uses change orders to increase his revenue.

Dana told The Times that he did not “see anything wrong” with having his aides vote on matters that the law would prohibit Dana from voting upon.

Knabe said he knew that Tutor-Saliba was a major donor but was not influenced by the campaign contributions. He said he was following “standard operating procedure” by voting as Dana’s substitute.

Ronald N. Tutor, managing partner of Tutor-Saliba, said he expected nothing in return for his campaign contributions. He said he made the donations because Dana is “an excellent supervisor” whom he has supported since 1980, when Dana first sought office.

Tutor-Saliba is the largest Metro Rail subway contractor, with more than $420 million in contracts. The company has given tens of thousands of dollars to local, state and federal campaigns. In the last two years, records show, Dana is the only transportation commissioner who has received any donations.

The Times reported earlier this month that Tutor-Saliba had contributed $45,500--more than any other donor--to Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s unsuccessful reelection campaign.

The district attorney received the contributions during the past two years, while his office reviewed various whistle-blower allegations against the contractor.

Reiner said he would not have accepted the money if he had known about the review.

Tutor-Saliba’s donations drew attention this year when a Transportation Commission audit revealed that the contractor had billed Metro Rail for a portion of its 1990 donations to candidates for statewide office.

The Transportation Commission is composed of 11 local elected officials.

Many designate aides or other surrogates to attend the meetings and vote on theirbehalf.

Whether Knabe’s or Hirsch’s votes affecting Tutor-Saliba violated state law is not clear.

“The statute does not speak directly to that issue,” said Carol Thorpe, a spokeswoman for the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Robert M. Stern, who drafted and helped sponsor the law in 1982, said Knabe’s votes in particular illustrate a loophole.

“It seems to me that the chief of staff acts as the alter ego of the supervisor,” said Stern, the former general counsel of the Fair Political Practices Commission. “If the supervisor is disqualified from participating in a decision affecting the contributor, so should be the chief of staff. The law should be changed.”

Dana rarely attends monthly commission meetings. When he did attend a special meeting last March, records show that Dana collected the $100 meeting stipend but did not vote. As Dana’s surrogate, Knabe voted to add $8.2 million of work to an $18-million Tutor-Saliba contract. Two months earlier, the company had contributed $5,000 to Dana’s reelection drive.

Neither Knabe nor Dana could recall the March meeting. Dana said he did not know why he allowed Knabe to vote for him. “Possibly I had to leave” before the vote, he said. “It’s hard to say.”

Dana said he sometimes confers with Knabe in advance of commission meetings but does not recall discussing Tutor-Saliba. Knabe said Dana does not instruct him how to vote on any contracts or change orders.

Records show that Tutor-Saliba made five contributions to Dana’s campaign during the period when the supervisor’s aides approved lucrative and sometimes controversial contracts and change orders:

On Jan. 23, 1991, Knabe and his commission colleagues voted--without public explanation--to deny a $46.3-million, competitively bid contract to a company whose price was $5 million lower than Tutor-Saliba’s. Within days of the vote, Tutor-Saliba contributed $3,000 to Dana’s campaign. The next month Tutor-Saliba gave $5,000 to Dana’s campaign.

On April 10, 1991, after a new round of bidding, Knabe and his colleagues voted to award the contract to Tutor-Saliba, the new low bidder at $44.5 million. The contract covered construction of a tunnel and track between MacArthur Park and a station at Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. The vote came nine days after the company made another $5,000 contribution to Dana’s campaign.

Michael L. Shank, whose Denver-based company was rejected by the commission despite its original low bid, said the experience persuaded him to stop seeking Metro Rail contracts.

“We were stunned when it happened,” said Shank, whose company previously had won two subway tunneling contracts. “I’m never going to bid there, ever again. . . . It’s just too highly political.”

Unlike Tutor-Saliba, Shank said that his company does not give money to political campaigns. “Not one cent,” Shank said. “I don’t like to give because it sort of implies that if you give, you’re going to get something for it.”

Knabe said the commissioners in a closed-door session decided to reject Shank’s original low bid, based on an affiliated company’s accident record.

The next year, on Jan. 22, 1992, Knabe voted to approve a controversial change order that paid Tutor-Saliba to install a new floor surface in the passenger loading area of one subway station, at a rate of $435 a square foot.

The $371,500 change order had come under extensive criticism five days earlier from at least three members of the Transportation Commission’s subsidiary board, the Rail Construction Corp., which oversees Metro Rail construction.

“$435 a square foot--it’s an insane price,” said former board member James L. Pott, who opposed the change order. Construction experts interviewed by The Times agreed that the commission paid an extraordinarily high price.

The change order paid for removing three-quarter-inch granite tiles already in place, and purchasing and installing textured, foot-square concrete tiles. The substitution was made to keep the surface consistent with other subway stations and to better accommodate blind passengers.

Although the $371,500 was not a huge outlay on the multibillion-dollar subway project, Pott said he saw the item as “an indicator” of out-of-control spending. “That’s not the way to do business,” said Pott, the former chief engineer for the city of Long Beach who resigned last March from the rail construction panel.

Dana and Knabe said they could not recall the matter.

Dana, 66, this year faced his toughest reelection battle since winning a seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1980. Unable to muster a majority vote in the June primary, he was forced into a run-off by Gordana Swanson, a Rolling Hills councilwoman.

Dana raised more than $1 million in 1991 and 1992 before defeating Swanson last month. “I had to raise a lot of money,” Dana said. Asked whether he solicited funds from Tutor, Dana said, “I contacted everyone I knew.”

This year, Tutor-Saliba was one of six donors that gave Dana $15,000. The company was Dana’s top contributor in 1991, giving $13,000. From 1984 through 1990, the company contributed $38,000. When Knabe unsuccessfully sought a state Senate seat in 1988, Tutor-Saliba gave him $4,400.

Knabe confirmed that he began assisting Dana’s reelection drive during off hours in late June and later was named Dana’s campaign manager. Records show that from July through Election Day, Knabe was paid $15,000. Knabe said he has not solicited any of Tutor-Saliba’s contributions to Dana.

While working on Dana’s campaign, Knabe attended the Transportation Commission’s meeting on July 22, 1992, and voted to approve $1.3 million in change orders to Tutor-Saliba contracts. He also attended the August meeting but left the voting to Dana’s other aide, Sara Hirsch. Hirsch could not be reached for comment.

In September, Tutor-Saliba gave Dana’s campaign $10,000. During the next six weeks, Hirsch attended two commission meetings, voting to award the company a total of $3 million in change orders.

Knabe resumed attending commission meetings on Nov. 18 after Dana won the election. At that meeting, he voted to approve $9.5 million in change orders to Tutor-Saliba contracts.

Generally, Knabe said that he has voted to approve change orders to pay for additional work that is necessary.

“Change orders are the most difficult thing to deal with,” Knabe said. “What are you going to do? Stop a project? . . . Change orders are, unfortunately, a cost of doing business.”