The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday passed a long-stalled ethics package that bars city commissioners from lobbying city staff or elected officials and bans participation by commissioners in contract matters at the staff level.

Separately, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the appointment of civil rights attorney Thomas Saenz as his chief ethics officer and legal advisor, a newly-created senior-level position. Saenz was vice president of litigation at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; he will function as the Villaraigosa administration’s ethics watchdog.

Villaraigosa also issued ethics directives to his staff and appointees, requiring them to attend ethics training sessions, to disclose potential conflicts of interest, and to sign an ethics pledge.

The Council passed the four-measure ethics package on a 12-0 vote (with Councilmember Tom LaBonge absent) following Villaraigosa’s first appearance before his former colleagues urging them to pass the package.

“Mixing the roles between commissioners and staff makes no sense. This is an essential reform,” Villaraigosa said of the measure barring commissioners from participating in staff contract discussions.

Also in the package is a requirement for lobbyists to file lists of clients and expenditures online.

The restrictions on city commissioners had first been proposed in the midst of ethics investigations of commissioners during the administration of former Mayor James Hahn. At the time, City Controller Laura Chick concluded in her audit of Los Angeles World Airports that airport commissioners would frequently sit in on staff contract deliberations.

When the measures first came before the City Council last year, the council sent them back for further review. They then became a focus of the mayoral campaign, with Hahn’s opponents criticizing him for not enacting reforms. Hahn in turn blamed the City Council.