Kolender Didn’t Disclose $50,000 Home Mortgage

San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender received a $50,000 house loan in 1984 from James A. Vaus, vice president of the San Diego Crime Commission, and didn’t report the loan on city financial disclosure forms.

City Atty. John Witt said Wednesday night that his office will review today whether state law requires disclosure of the loan, but he stressed that he has not initiated a formal investigation.

“Generally speaking, matters regarding your house financing do not have to be reported,” Witt said.

But Witt said he is not sure whether the law exempting disclosure of home loans includes personal loans.

Kolender, who confirmed the loan Wednesday night, secured a first mortgage to purchase his Del Cerro home from a financial institution and took out a second trust deed in the form of a three-year interest-only note at 14.5% from Vaus. Kolender said he is paying Vaus $614 a month on the second trust deed.

Kolender said he asked the city attorney’s office last week if he should have reported the loan on disclosure statements that public officials are required to file. He said Deputy City Atty. Jack Katz told him he did not have to disclose the loan.

“I never questioned it, because it was a second on my home,” Kolender said. “The question is: Should I have declared it? I don’t understand it. I did nothing wrong.”

Witt said he will also determine whether it is proper for a member of the crime commission to loan money to the police chief.

“The crime commission is not a part of city government and, as such, what we have to do is figure out whether the crime commission has anything to do with the operation of the Police Department or not,” he said.

“I don’t think it has much to do with it, but we will determine that in the morning also.”

Vaus wrote a book in 1974 describing his life as a wiretapper and personal friend of the late gangster Mickey Cohen, once organized crime’s leader in Southern California. The son of a Baptist minister, Vaus, 67, was convicted of armed robbery and spent a year in the Los Angeles County Jail before proclaiming his born-again belief in Jesus Christ while attending a 1949 Billy Graham tent meeting.

Vaus later founded Youth Development Inc., a San Diego-based program for wayward children. Considered by many a model of reformed civic responsibility, Vaus converted a little-used employee lounge at Youth Development into a spacious office and has allowed the crime commission to use it rent-free as its headquarters.

Kolender said he sees no conflict of interest in the city’s police chief accepting a loan from a crime commission member.

“There’s nothing to it,” Kolender said. “Roger Young (crime commission executive director) is one of my closest friends. The crime commission is not a watchdog. Vaus is on the board, like half of San Diego.”

There are 27 crime commission board members, many of whom are prominent.

A founder of the commission, San Diego attorney Michael J. Aguirre, called on Kolender to disclose all details surrounding the loan package.

“The significance of the loan is that it compromises Chief Kolender and it compromises the San Diego Crime Commission, and at the very least it should have been disclosed,” Aguirre said.

“At this point there should be full disclosure of all of the checks and of all the details of how Vaus was making loans that should be reported to the public.”

Kolender said he is refinancing his house. He added that he is concerned that any controversy surrounding the loan could hurt his chances of refinancing his house at lower interest rates.