John Lee Investigation Requested By Neighborhood Councils

PORTER RANCH, CA —The Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council will vote Wednesday on whether to introduce a resolution calling on Los Angeles Councilmember John Lee to resign.

Lee has been a topic of suspicion in District 12 ever since he replaced his former boss, disgraced former Councilmember Mitchell Englander, back in March. As Englander’s chief of staff, Lee accompanied him on a June 2017 trip to Las Vegas, where Englander has admitted to taking $15,000 in cash from a “Businessman A.”

A grand jury indictment of Englander discusses “City Staffer B” who allegedly also accepted gifts from Businessman A.

“Mr. Lee has lost the privilege of having the trust of the community to serve them at City Council,” the council’s resolution stated.

Lee has not confirmed whether or not he is the staffer. Instead, he has released the following statement: "In my 20 years of service with the City of Los Angeles, I have never had a single ethics violation. My focus is on working with everyone in our community to address the most pressing issues facing the Twelfth District and all of Los Angeles."

On June 5, the Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council voted in favor of a similar resolution 10 to 6, with one abstention. The resolution calls on the City Ethics Commission to “investigate council member Lee’s involvement in this incident, determine if he violated ethics rules promulgated by the city of Los Angeles and produce a full public report.”

During public comment time, a number of Granada Hills citizens called in to express their support for the resolution.

"As a community, we should be completely outraged, deeply concerned, and I believe that we should hold City Councilman John Lee accountable in terms of investigation,” said one resident. “We need a city councilman we can trust, so please vote for this – I think John Lee’s name being in the document is more than enough evidence to let this motion pass.”

While the majority of callers expressed their support for the resolution, some did not, pointing out that the matter is already being investigated. “The government is investigating it and I do not believe this is your place,” said one resident. “How can you sit there and think that he’s not working for you? He for 30 years has shown that – please let him do what he does and let him work. Investigation will just postpone this, and someone is already investigating.”

Neighborhood councilmembers expressed similar diverging opinions. “I am very disheartened by the fact that our neighborhood council has brought such a motion,” said former council member Maria Fisk, who resigned in protest after the June 5 meeting.

“This is a slap in the face of no confidence to our newly elected councilmember. This is something that I’m completely opposed and I would hope that the board members would look at this as a fair process, not guilt by association, and give him his due process.”

Board president David Beauvais ended the discussion with an emphatic support of the resolution.

“To run for office knowing that you are potentially going to be indicted, knowing your former boss will be indicted, to run for office and not say anything,” Beauvais said of Lee. “He may have been admonished from saying anything, but he made the choice. He made the choice, no matter what the FBI is doing. So the very least we can do, thankfully is to ask our city ethics commission for complete and thorough investigation of this sordid matter, and I mean sordid in every sense. If I appear angry tonight, damn right I am angry, I am angry that [Englander and Lee] betrayed our trust as elected representatives.”

No similar resolutions appear on the posted agendas of the Northridge East, Northridge West, or Chatsworth Neighborhood Councils.