David Zahniser of the Daily Breeze is one of the first, if not the first, City Hall reporters to step back and ask what's up with controller Laura Chick. He recounts that she's been part of the political fundraising cycle that her office now questions. Chick held her first fundraiser for citywide office at the home of Ted Stein, the airports commisioner whose name always seem come up when the subject is questionable fundraising by appointed city officials.

"I am always concerned when any elected official begins to criticize tactics which they have used," said Harvey Englander, a senior vice president with the MWW Group, who worked on two of Chick's campaigns. "She's attacking a practice in which she has been a principal player."

Chick told Zahniser her push for audits and her questioning of fundraising practices are motivated in part by what she saw having to raise money for her campaigns. Word on the street -- did I really just say that? -- is that the LAT is also working on a Chick piece. (Yep, it ran the next day.)