Combination May Not Be a Winner

There may be rough sailing ahead for San Diego businessman Robert O. Peterson, husband of Mayor Maureen O’Connor, in the Northern California town of Mendocino, where the call for conservation is as strong as the waves that hammer the rugged shoreline. In fact, so ardent are preservationists there that they recently protested construction of a child care center’s jungle gym on a vacant lot.

Anyway, the Coastal Commission next week is scheduled to hear Peterson’s request that he be allowed to combine management of his 26-room Mendocino Hotel and the 25-room Heeser House Inn next door.

Community no-growth activists, who opposed the Heeser House opening in 1984, claim that Peterson violated a proviso in his Coastal Commission permit that he operate the two hotels under separate managements.

Mendocino’s town plan requires that no new inn or hotel exceed 25 units, and activists say that Peterson’s common management violates the town plan. In effect, they charge, he operates a 51-room establishment.

The issue, hotly debated in Mendocino all year, surfaced during O’Connor’s campaign for mayor.

Violation of the Heeser House Inn permit reportedly carries a fine of up to $5,000 per day.

But He Didn’t Pop Off . . .

Crown Bancorp’s long-awaited annual meeting Friday drew a group of typically outspoken people who apparently showed up strictly as observers.

Popcorn hot-shot Orville Redenbacher, a Crown shareholder, was there. So was Milton Sorokin, the Canadian investor whose support of a dissident group of shareholders has sparked protests from Crown management, who charge the group is trying to take over the Coronado-based banking holding company without first obtaining regulatory approval.

Also attending were Bank of Commerce’s top two executives--Pete Davis and Gary Yeomans, who quietly sat through the nearly three hours of meeting and recess because, they said, it was “interesting.”

Getting It Together

Imperial Corp. of America, the $8.7-billion-in-assets parent of Imperial Savings Assn., on Monday ended its six-month search for a corporate headquarters site. In two separate deals, Imperial leased three buildings just east of Montgomery Field in Kearny Mesa at about $240,000 per month for 240,000 square feet.

The buildings will house Imperial’s 1,100 employees, as well as an employee cafeteria and fitness center, a corporate training center and a two-tiered parking garage for more than 700 cars.

Imperial’s operations are now spread over four buildings in different parts of the city.