Battle Among Leadership at Bank Cooled

A special shareholders meeting set for Jan. 24 at controversy-torn Frontier Bancorp in Vista has been called off after directors agreed on a new business plan and its former president agreed to drop a lawsuit against the firm.

The special meeting, called by former chairman M. Jim Lucas, sought to remove all 10 directors of the bank holding company, parent of Frontier National Bank. Lucas had been critical of the Nov. 2 firing of E. Jerome Kraffert, who was the president and chief executive officer.

Kraffert subsequently filed a wrongful termination suit against the bank.

The new business plan is designed for “increased profitability,” according to a joint statement issued by Lucas and current chairman Donovan Puccio.

The plan hasn’t filtered down to the staff yet and its details are unknown, according to Tom Dean, Frontier’s marketing director.

The board met last week and agreed both to the new plan and to call off the special shareholders meeting. “The board felt, ‘We can settle these things among ourselves,’ ” said Dean.

The bank began operations two years ago and lists assets in excess of $26 million.

Last week, the bank said it had increased its reserve for possible loan losses to $210,000, or 1% of its total loans. That translated into a revision of its $3,000 first-quarter profit to a loss of $122,000.