Embattled Councilman Resigns From Redevelopment Agency

Outspoken City Councilman Robert Wagner resigned from the city’s redevelopment agency last week, the latest episode in a bitter feud over contentions that he lied about his financial ties to a shopping center next to South Pasadena’s only redevelopment project.

Wagner has admitted that he might have a potential conflict of interest in voting on decisions that involve the project, even though he said he sold the Squires Square shopping center to his adult children in 1977 and 1978.

On the advice of an attorney with the state Fair Political Practices Commission, Wagner had been voluntarily abstaining from most agency decisions since January.

But Mayor Lee Prentiss, who has accused Wagner of lying about his connection to the property, said he will not be satisfied until Wagner explains why government records show that he still holds title and receives income from the land.

The controversy--which Wagner calls a “political vendetta” and which Prentiss insists is “not a Wagner-bashing”--was expected to be resolved at a City Council meeting Wednesday. Instead, Wagner resigned from the agency without elaborating on his connection to the property.

“I’m trying to determine whether you blatantly lied to the City Council” over who owns the property, Prentiss said to Wagner at the meeting.

“It depends on a clarification of what you call a lie,” Wagner responded.

Councilmen Confused

Council members James Woollaaott Jr. and James C. Hodge Jr. said that the exchange left them confused and that they will not reach a conclusion until Wagner presents a formal statement to the council on Sept. 17.

The council did not indicate who might be appointed to replace Wagner on the redevelopment agency.

The turmoil had already heated up at an Aug. 6 meeting of the Community Redevelopment Agency when members of the City Council, who also serve as the agency, sought to clarify Wagner’s financial ties to the shopping center and whether he should remain on the agency.

Based on Wagner’s own decision to abstain from voting, City Atty. Charles Vose had advised the councilman either to resign from the agency or not to attend meetings where the redevelopment project was discussed.

After stating that the shopping center had been sold to his children, Wagner decided at that Aug. 6 meeting to continue serving on the agency, but stepped down from the dais and did not participate, according to agency minutes.

However, Prentiss said after the meeting that he thinks Wagner still owns the shopping center or at least controls it. He showed a reporter a copy of Wagner’s statement of economic interests for 1985 which shows that he received more than $100,000 that year from his interest in Squires Square.

In addition, county tax records examined by The Times show that Wagner and his wife, Bernice, still own three of the four lots that make up Squires Square, which houses a Vons supermarket in the 1100 block of Fair Oaks Avenue.

Prentiss said that he does not believe Wagner ever directly benefited from any vote he cast on the agency.

But the mayor said he was concerned about the integrity of city government because he believes Wagner may have lied about his financial holdings.

Wagner, in an interview before last week’s council meeting, said that those records do not tell the whole story.

He refused to disclose the details of his financial transactions.

However, tax documents examined by The Times show that part of the shopping center was purchased in 1977 and the remainder in 1978 by Robmaric Trust, which is operated by Wagner’s 31-year-old son, Richard, on behalf of all three children.

Formal Transfer

Wagner explained that tax records indicate he still owns the property because the title will not formally be transferred to Robmaric Trust until he receives final payment for the land.

The sale was based on a long-term land contract, a common method of handing down property within a family, that gives the trust approximately 15 years to finish paying for the purchase, Wagner said.

The $100,000 Prentiss referred to on the public financial disclosure form for 1985 represents those ongoing payments from Robmaric Trust, Wagner added.

When asked why he had not shown the property records to the council, Wagner said he had already revealed all financial information required by law.

Mark Ryavec, chief deputy to the county tax assessor, said that if a contract of sale has been signed, then the property technically has been sold. However, because the sale never was reported to the county, tax records show that the councilman still owns the land, Ryavec said.

Lynn Montgomery, a spokeswoman for the Fair Political Practices Commission in Sacramento, said that Wagner’s interest in the property probably represents a potential conflict of interest, but because he had been voluntarily abstaining from the agency votes, she did not think Wagner could be considered guilty of any violations.

Wagner called the allegations “a political vendetta.”

“This is a total movement of the ‘good old boys’ to discredit the maverick councilman,” he said.

Indeed, Wagner has long been at the center of controversy in South Pasadena politics. The 63-year-old former liquor-store owner has been hailed by supporters as an independent watchdog battling an established political order, and attacked by critics as an abrasive, self-interested opportunist.

Four times an unsuccessful City Council candidate before his election in 1984, Wagner is well known for his successful crusade to block construction of a $3.5-million civic center that same year.

Arguing that existing facilities could be renovated for much less, Wagner helped launch a recall drive against three council members who supported the proposed project.

That drive was halted when the council agreed to put the civic center issue before voters, who defeated the project with a 62% “no” vote.

Wagner, who campaigned in 1984 on a pledge that he would have “no conflicts of interest in any transaction while representing the public,” was also critical of former Councilman David Margrave, who was embroiled in a conflict-of-interest controversy last year for voting to approve more than $14,500 in payments to his own plumbing company for maintenance work done for the city.

While Prentiss has insisted that current accusations against Wagner are not political, some current and former city officials said that Wagner is being given a dose of his own medicine.

Former Mayor Ted Shaw, who did not seek reelection in April, said that two adages apply to the turmoil now surrounding Wagner:

“You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time,” he said. “And if you live by the sword, you die by the sword.”

‘King of the Pickers’

Margaret Wallace, a member of the city’s Natural Resources Commission and a longtime community activist, denied that the attention focused on Wagner is a vendetta.

“He has absolutely no reason to feel like he’s being picked on and only he, because he’s the king of the pickers,” Wallace said.

However, Thomas Biesek, who headed the Committee for Responsive Government that supported Wagner’s campaign in 1984, said the dispute is being used as ammunition against Wagner by his political enemies.

Biesek said that Wagner had made “a tactical error” by not being more forthright about his interests in Squires Square, but complained that the councilman’s “misstep allows the Wagner-haters within the community to use a brickbat where a feather would work.”

Questions over Wagner’s connection to the shopping center were first raised last year when he abstained from a vote to develop a preliminary redevelopment plan in the central business district, indicating that he owned property there and it was best not to participate, according to minutes of the July 3, 1985, meeting.

At the request of the redevelopment agency, City Atty. Vose submitted an opinion dated Jan. 31, concluding that Wagner was faced with a potential conflict of interest in connection with the development project to be constructed on property next to the Squires Square shopping center.

Vose indicated in his opinion that his judgment was based on an understanding that Wagner was the trustee of a trust that owned Squires Square.

At the same meeting that the opinion was presented, Wagner formally notified the agency that, on the advice of an attorney with the Fair Political Practices Commission, he would voluntarily abstain from voting on any projects within the entire four-square-block Downtown Redevelopment Project area, according to agency minutes.

The project area is roughly bounded by Fair Oaks Avenue, Oxley Street, Mission Street and Fremont Avenue. No plans for the project have been announced.