The sudden death last week of LAT Associate Editor Frank del Olmo messed up a deal Mayor James Hahn had to leak his ethics reform proposals to the Times and get space on the paper's op-ed page to explain them, the Daily News' Rick Orlov reports Monday. The op-ed spot was devoted instead to Del Olmo's past columns, and Hahn still took heat inside City Hall for giving his plan to the Times without keeping others in the loop, Orlov writes.

All of which left Hahn to deal with an angry press corps Friday and City Council members who felt the mayor was upstaging them.

It also left potential challengers to the mayor in next year's election fuming.

Councilman Bernard Parks, who is edging closer to a formal announcement, declared the mayor's proposals were coming in too late and long after the mayor had mined what he could politically from contributors.

Patt Morrison's Monday politics column notes that local Democrats are moving from their traditional election night home at the Biltmore to the Wilshire Grand.