Martinez Offers to Quit If Given Radio License

San Diego City Councilman Uvaldo Martinez has made a standing offer to resign his District 8 seat if he and his business partners are granted the license to operate radio station KIFM, according to papers filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The offer is contained in documents filed last year by San Diego Broadcasting, a partnership including Martinez that is one of 21 groups competing for the license in a bruising battle expected to last several years. It was made months before Martinez became the target of a criminal investigation into possible abuse of a city-issued credit card.

Martinez is expected to be questioned today about both the resignation offer and the criminal probe when he is cross-examined under oath at an FCC administrative hearing by rival bidders for the San Diego FM radio station. Attorneys for the competitors say they will challenge the councilman’s fitness to participate in operating KIFM.

Don Harrison, a spokesman in San Diego for Martinez, said Thursday that the councilman made the offer to resign anticipating that the FCC would not award the license before the end of his current term.

“This was the kind of job opportunity that could entice him to leave politics and make that kind of commitment,” Harrison said. “The key to it is the timing. The fact of the matter is, he was really anticipating that this was something that would occur--it it did occur--at the end of his term.”

On Thursday, an FCC administrative law judge rejected a move by Martinez and his aide, Rudy P. Murillo Jr., also a partner in the station takeover bid, to make it more difficult for the criminal investigation into their use of city credit cards to affect their bid for the station.

Martinez, Murillo and three other people are partners in San Diego Broadcasting, which has made one of 21 proposals to operate the FM station. An attorney for a competing bidder has said Martinez may have been included in San Diego Broadcasting to give the partnership an advantage because of the councilman’s “civic involvements.”

However, the FCC requires that general partners in a radio station devote full time to operating the station, according to Jack Studebaker, a San Diego attorney representing San Diego Broadcasting.

So when the group applied for the license in October, 1984, Martinez offered to resign from the City Council “so he could ensure that if there was a conflict, he’d be able to devote full time to the management of the station,” Studebaker said in an interview Thursday in San Diego.

FCC documents say Martinez would become the station’s program director if his group obtains the license.

Ronald Fowler, the San Diego beer distributor whose holding company owns a majority interest in San Diego Broadcasting, said that when Martinez made the offer, he expected to be able to complete the four-year council term he won in 1983 before the FCC could make a decision on the KIFM license.

But Martinez knew he might have to leave the council if the license was awarded to the group, Fowler said.

“When this whole process started--and it seems like eons ago--he was very aware of that and was determined to go forward even if that was the requirement, because he thought it was an opportunity that was very good for him,” Fowler said Thursday in San Diego.

Lee Peltzman, the Washington attorney representing San Diego Broadcasting in the FCC proceedings, said Thursday he that expected Martinez that might be questioned about the resignation pledge when he is cross-examined in the licensing case.

“I would think certainly he could be cross-examined on those very matters,” Peltzman said. “I would think that’s the sort of thing . . . that might come up.”

The original partnership agreement for San Diego Broadcasting also said that a majority of the limited partners could fire a general partner--such as Martinez and Murillo--if they were guilty of any conduct that caused damage to the partnership, its name, good will or business.

The partnership offered an amended agreement, however, that would make it more difficult to remove the general partners. Judge Joseph Chachkin on Thursday refused to allow the change because of a technicality, saying it should have been submitted earlier in the application process and not during the hearing stage now under way. The number of applicants involved makes the battle over KIFM one of the largest FCC proceedings ever conducted for a radio license.

According to attorneys for other groups competing for the KIFM license, the proposal appeared to be an effort to insulate the partnership from the political and legal problems of Martinez and Murillo, who have dined at meals that cost taxpayers $9,500 in the year ending June 30.

Two dozen people have told The Times that they, in fact, did not eat with Martinez on the dates he recorded on city expense forms or did not discuss city business as he stated. The San Diego County district attorney’s office announced Tuesday that there was enough substance to the allegations to forward the investigation to the county grand jury for consideration on Feb. 11.

The accusations involving Martinez and Murillo have raised some concerns, fueled by rival interests, that the seriousness of the charges could affect the group’s application for the radio license to the FCC.

Martinez and Murillo are general partners in San Diego Broadcasting along with Tom Jimenez, sales manager of XTRA-AM and -FM, and Rosemarie Saenz, an administrative analyst for the San Diego Housing Commission. Each has a 25% interest and an equal vote in directing the partnership’s operations.

On the financial side, a company called Liquid Investments, owned by Fowler, has a 60% limited liability interest, and the remainder is dispersed among other group members, attorneys said Thursday.

The limited partners have the bulk of the ownership but do not participate in day-to-day operations.

Along with Martinez, Saenz is scheduled to undergo cross-examination today by attorneys for competing applicants. Murillo and Jimenez appeared before Chachkin on Thursday.

During that proceeding, the judge also refused to accept an exhibit submitted by attorneys for other companies showing that Carte Blanche took legal action against Murillo last year to collect $2,752.86 in unpaid bills.

Rival attorneys questioning Murillo expressed concern that this outstanding claim was pending while Murillo shared financial responsibility for the KIFM application. “I don’t see how it is relevant,” Chachkin said. Murillo said he has since settled the matter.

Under questioning, Jimenez disclosed that Murillo loaned Saenz $1,000 to help her make her initial contribution to the partnership. Jimenez also said that Saenz is $9,000 behind in her payments to the group, but is making monthly payments and has obtained a bank loan. “We have every confidence she will pay,” he said.

Once the hearings are completed in February, the judge will review the applications and make a recommendation to the full FCC.

The previous operators of KIFM were stripped of their license by the FCC for failing to provide adequate news and public affairs programming.