Martinez Affirms Plan to Quit if License Okd

San Diego City Councilman Uvaldo Martinez said Friday that he was prepared to leave his elected post for a new venture as program director of radio station KIFM if his partnership is awarded the license for the San Diego FM station.

“I intend to be a fully participating owner in this radio station and I will resign” if the partnership outbids 20 other applicants for KIFM, Martinez told a Federal Communications Commission administrative law judge during the hearing.

Under cross-examination by rival applicants for the license, Martinez also denied an allegation aired earlier in the hearings this week that he had offered to make city employees available to help in private investors’ search for a transmitter site for the station.

Martinez is one of the general partners in San Diego Broadcasting, one of 21 groups competing for the license to operate KIFM. The FCC stripped the station’s previous owners of their license for failing to provide adequate news and public affairs programming.

In his testimony Friday, Martinez reiterated a pledge to resign that he first made in documents drawn up in July, 1984, just months into his four-year term as District 8 councilman.

The pledge predated by more than a year an investigation by the San Diego County district attorney’s office into possible criminal misuse of city-issued credit cards by Martinez and his chief aide, Rudy Murillo, who also is a general partner in San Diego Broadcasting.

Under questioning by attorney John M. Pelkey, selected by the rival applicants to cross-examine Martinez, the councilman acknowledged that he was a subject of the investigation.

But Judge Joseph Chachkin, who presided over the hearing, restricted questions in this area on grounds that the substance of the charges does not pertain to the application for the radio station license.

The San Diego County district attorney’s office announced Tuesday that it had found enough substance to the allegations of criminal wrongdoing by Martinez and Murillo and planned to take the case to the county grand jury for further inquiry early next year.

Martinez told the hearing Friday that he learned of the availability of the license last year in a phone call from a friend, Manny Sepulveda, who asked if he was interested in joining in such a venture.

In July, 1984, early in the discussions, Martinez met with Sepulveda and Alice Marquis of La Jolla in his city office, according to Marquis. Marquis later filed an application for KIFM with a group called New Sounds of San Diego that includes Martinez’s 1983 election opponent, San Diego lawyer Celia Ballesteros.

On Thursday, Marquis told the hearing under oath that, during the 1984 meeting, Martinez offered to have city employees look into possible transmitter sites for the station.

When he was asked Friday at the hearing whether that was true, Martinez replied under oath with a terse “No.”

The other general partners in the group are Murillo; Tom Jimenez, sales manager at XTRA-AM and -FM, and Rosemarie Saenz, an administrative analyst with the San Diego Housing Commission. Each has a 25% interest.

Their application for KIFM’s license calls for Jimenez to be general manager of the station, Martinez to be program director, Murillo station manager and assistant general manager, and Saenz the public relations director.

During his 90 minutes of testimony, Martinez was asked about his political background as well as his plans.

Martinez said he would not rule out running for another city council term “if we’re not successful with this application.”