L.A'.s first ethics chief, Benjamin Bycel, dies at 84

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Set us as preferred Benjamin Bycel, a civil rights attorney, law school dean and university president who took on the task of cleaning up Los Angeles politics as the city’s first ethics officer, died Aug.2 in Santa Barbara.

He was 84.His son, Josh Bycel, said the death was due to complications from Parkinson’s disease.Born in Brooklyn in 1942, Bycel moved to Huntington Park when he was 5.

The son of a boxing manager and a teacher, he spent much of his childhood accompanying his father to downtown boxing gyms and the Olympic Auditorium.After graduating from Huntington Park High School, he earned a master’s in history from San José State University.Bycel served with the Peace Corps in Uganda, taught at Manual Arts High School in L.A.

and reported for the Associated Press in New York.As a law student at UC Davis, he was a press aide for San Francisco Mayor George Moscone’s campaign for governor of California.After earning his law degree, Bycel worked as an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Sacramento.

As a civil rights lawyer in Santa Barbara, he successfully argued a landmark California Supreme Court case, which upheld the right of adults unrelated by blood, marriage or adoption to live together as a family.In 1986, Bycel took on the role of dean for the Ventura College of Law, helping steer the ship after the former dean was accused of misappropriating funds.Five years later, he took on his most high-profile role as founding director of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.The Times called it “a Herculean task.” The commission was created in 1990 after a wave of political corruption scandals engulfed Mayor Tom Bradley’s administration.

When the City Council initially declined to pass tough anti-corruption laws, voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition H to create an independent watchdog tasked ...