Conviction of L.A. City Hall culture

Is this just the first shoe to drop? That's what half of Los Angeles City Hall has to be wondering after the corruption conviction of developer Dae Young Lee.

Lee was found guilty on Monday of paying a $500,000 bribe to City Councilman Jose Huizar to “grease the wheels” for a downtown L.A. condominium project.

Problem for the rest of the interested parties waiting for that other shoe: Lee was just the first defendant to go on trial in the pay-to-play scandal swirling around now-former Councilman Huizar and many people he worked with.

Which is most everyone in City Hall.

They've all been along for the ride in a rapidly developing city starving for more housing that has a bureaucracy peopled by electeds and appointeds who are the gatekeepers who get to decide who gets to build what, where. Too many come to their jobs with open hands, so to speak.

Now push has come to shove in getting to the bottom of how City Hall has been operating at the expense of Angelenos for far too long.

As City News Service reported: “Lee and his 940 Hill company — named for the address of the proposed downtown retail and residential project — were convicted of bribery, honest services fraud and obstruction. The fraud and obstruction charges carry a total penalty of up to 20 years in prison.”

It wasn't a tough call for the citizens empaneled to hear the case. The verdict came just a couple of hours after the federal criminal jury began deliberations. Lee is set to be sentenced Sept. 19.

Huizar himself, along with former Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan, formerly general manager of the Department of Building and Safety, will be tried on racketeering and bribery charges next February.

The Lee trial, so easy to convict in, showed “bags of cash” went to a Huizar aide to secure the councilman's vote on a crucial planning committee he chaired.

We can't stop the past corruption. We can hope for more convictions as a cautionary tale for greedy would-be Huizars.

But the only way for Los Angeles voters to change the current culture of City Hall is to scrutinize council candidates as if the future of a great city depended upon it. Because it does.