Kolender Violates Police Ethics Policy by Taking Gifts

Police Chief Bill Kolender has accepted gifts worth thousands of dollars from influential San Diegans, a practice that violates his department’s ethics policy and is frowned upon by many police executives.

Some gifts have come from sources who later had traffic tickets dismissed by the chief’s office. Other gifts may pose a conflict of interest for Kolender because the donors have business connections with the Police Department or the city.

Kolender declined to discuss specific cases but adamantly denied that he has ever accepted an inappropriate gift.

“I don’t take gratuities or anything like that,” Kolender said Friday. “I have taken the sports things. I don’t take any kind of alcohol. I don’t let someone take me out who does business with the city and the Police Department.”

The free items include vacations in Hawaii and Palm Springs, rides in limousines, season tickets to Charger games, a pass that allows him into any National League baseball game, a pair of annual passes to Sea World, and dinners at fund-raising events with President Reagan and Gov. George Deukmejian.

A Times investigation revealed last week that Kolender and his top aides have dismissed thousands of parking citations and at least 30 tickets for moving violations, some with fabricated excuses and many for influential San Diegans, friends, relatives and the media. Some of the tickets canceled were issued to people who either work for or are related to those who gave the police chief free passes to ballgames.

As City Manager John Lockwood continued a wide-ranging investigation into the ticket-fixing practices and other allegations, Kolender said Friday he remains confident he will “prevail.” He told reporters he wants to continue to “set an example” for his officers and “provide them leadership.”

But if lower-ranking San Diego police officers followed Kolender’s example of accepting free gifts, they could expect to face discipline.

Police officers are prohibited from accepting “any gift, gratuity, favor, entertainment, loan or any other thing of nominal monetary value” from anyone who remotely deals or comes in contact with the Police Department, according to department conflict of interest codes. The policy states that “at no time shall an officer accept free meals or drinks, reduced prices or any other consideration that is not regularly enjoyed by the public.”

The department is so strict in enforcing its policy that it has disciplined officers for taking a free cup of coffee, said Patrick J. Thistle, a San Diego attorney who represents about 200 officers in personnel matters.

Asked whether the chief’s acceptance of gifts contradicts department rules, Police Cmdr. Keith Enerson, a department spokesman, said: “We have a policy that you don’t take free freebies, and I think that we all should adhere to that policy. On the surface, it appears there may be some contradiction.”

Coronado Police Chief Jerry Boyd said the acceptance of “a freebie” by a police administrator can be even more damaging to a department’s image than if an officer takes a gift.

Boyd, who teaches police ethics at the San Diego County Sheriff’s Academy, is one of many police chiefs who have a firm personal policy against taking gratuities.

“Somebody will offer something,” he said. “It is declined. Then months later you find out that, had it been accepted, that person had fully intended to use it for some kind of twist. I just don’t think the risk is worth it.”

A diary prepared by Officer Jeanne Taylor, who worked for two years in Kolender’s office, portrays a police chief willingly and frequently accepting gifts as well as participating actively in the give-and-take of community affairs. Taylor prepared the diary, which was presented recently to the city’s Civil Service Commission because she objected to the personal errands she was required to do for Kolender and other top officers.

Kolender’s activity in the community has built up enormous good will for himself and for his department.

In 1980, Kolender asked Steve Gardella, vice president for security at PSA, to donate two round-trip tickets to Las Vegas for a black church in Southeast San Diego.

“Kolender was doing something where a church went broke,” Gardella said. “He asked me if I would assist the church.”

Gardella said the gift was presented to the church organization at a benefit held at the police pistol range.

On some occasions, Kolender and his top assistants have done favors for friends who have given the chief gifts.

For example, since 1981 San Diego Padres President Ballard Smith has sent Kolender an annual pass that grants him and a guest free admittance to any National League ballpark. Each year, Smith said, he sends a list containing the names of about 50 friends to the league office to get the passes.

“Most people on the list will write me a letter saying how much fun they have showing their friends they have this pass,” Smith said. “It’s one of those status symbol kinds of things.”

Kolender said Friday he has used the pass “on occasion.”

In October, 1982, Smith’s wife, Linda, was cited for making an illegal turn on La Jolla Boulevard. Linda Smith showed the ticket to a family employee, former police detective Wally Yeatts, who took the citation to the Police Department. The ticket was eventually dismissed by the chief’s office.

In April, Yeatts had Asst. Chief Bob Burgreen dismiss a parking ticket he received while driving a Mercedes-Benz owned by the Smiths.

Ballard Smith said in an interview Friday that he does not approve of asking police officials to dismiss tickets.

“I would suspect Bill probably feels the same way now,” Smith said. “It probably puts forth an appearance of impropriety that none of us wants.”

However, Smith insisted that no conflict of interest existed in his wife’s case because Kolender did not request the pass.

“The police chief did not receive a freebie,” Smith said. “Bill Kolender, friend of Ballard Smith, accepted a freebie. . . .

“I don’t feel bad about giving him the National League pass. I would plan to send him one next year, if he wants it. I will ask him next time. Maybe he doesn’t want it now because it looks bad.”

Smith added that, forgotten in the recent string of controversies surrounding Kolender is his record over 11 years as police chief.

“This Police Department is free of corruption as far as I can tell,” Smith said. “I have never lived in a city where there has been as honest a police department in all regards as this one.”

Kolender and his department are currently being investigated by City Manager Lockwood. The allegations include misusing city employees and property by sending a uniformed officer on numerous personal errands between 1980 and 1982; improperly dismissing thousands of parking tickets and at least 30 citations for moving violations since the beginning of last year for friends, relatives, fellow police officers and other influential San Diegans, and using his influence as police chief to help a friend buy a handgun without waiting the mandatory 15-day “cooling off” period.

Lockwood said Friday that he also is investigating Kolender’s acceptance of four season tickets from the San Diego Chargers. Kolender said the tickets are a gift to the Police Department in his name, and he distributes the tickets as perks among his top officers.

Chargers General Manager Johnny Sanders said the tickets have been donated to the Police Department at least since Kolender became chief in 1975. Within the past five years at least four members of the Chargers organization--including coach Al Saunders--have had citations for moving violations fixed by high-ranking officers, police officials acknowledge.

Sanders said he was not bothered by members of the Chargers organization getting their traffic tickets fixed by top police officials.

“I don’t see any problem,” Sanders said. “I hadn’t even thought about it. It’s their personal lives. I don’t see where the Chargers are involved in any way.”

There are other ties between the Police Department and the Chargers. The two organizations split the annual $40,000 cost of assigning police officers to provide security at home football games. That contract is negotiated between the city and the Chargers.

Officers Dick Lewis and George Varela are hired by the Chargers to protect the team at home and away games. Both officers have received complimentary tickets, club officials said.

Last year, Lewis arranged to dismiss a $52 parking ticket for Charger booster Earnest Stanley, president of Stanley Dodge in National City. Stanley had received the ticket for parking in a handicapped zone at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium while he traveled with the football team to New York.

Assistant Chief Burgreen told The Times he has been extremely concerned for years about the professional relationship between the Chargers and the other officers who work for the club in their spare time.

“I’ve told them I don’t want those guys on the team or the coaches or any one of those people feeling like they can just do whatever they want,” Burgreen said.

Burgreen himself asked Charger quarterback Dan Fouts to appear as a favor on a private fishing show produced for local television. Burgreen, now under investigation by the city manager for using police video equipment to produce the TV segments, has refused to discuss his business venture.

Other free gifts accepted by Kolender include:

- In a sworn deposition, Kolender stated in 1983 that he had accepted five to seven free limousine rides from Presidential Limousine Service. The chief said the local company is run by a “high school buddy” and a lifelong friend, Frank Madarocci and Ron Wheatcroft.

The comments were made as part of a lawsuit filed by Kenneth and Cynthia Erickson, owners of Classic Limousine Service, who claimed that the Police Department drove them out of business by continually citing their vehicles.

Kolender also traveled in a limousine paid for by Nancy Hoover, a one-time socialite who helped run the fraudulent J. David & Co. financial empire. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the case. Kolender testified in 1985 during former Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s first conspiracy trial that he was a guest of Hoover at a 1982 dinner honoring President Reagan.

- On a disclosure form for 1984, Kolender listed a trip to Hawaii and use of a condominium contributed by Larry Cushman, whose family has investments that include land holdings in Mission Valley.

Cushman’s brother, Steve, owns Cush Travel, the travel agency used by the Police Department. City records show the Police Department booked $83,734 worth of travel through the agency, while other city departments booked $55,600 in travel costs.

- Kolender routinely receives two annual passes to Sea World, said Jackie Hill, the park’s public relations director. Each pass is worth $35.

Officer Taylor listed the passes in her diary when she wrote in February, 1981, that she was asked to “set up two free passes for Marilyn Kolender at Sea World.” Marilyn Kolender is the chief’s former wife.

Though Sea World has no contract with the Police Department directly, it holds one of the city’s largest property leases. The marine aquatic park paid about $2.5 million during the past fiscal year to the city for rent on its Mission Bay site and a percentage of its concessions, said an official in the city’s property department.

- In October, 1984, Kolender received a $50,000 personal loan from James Vaus, vice president of the San Diego Crime Commission, for a second mortgage on his Del Cerro home. The crime commission is a nonprofit organization that sponsors seminars about crime and raises reward money to help solve crimes.

Vaus is also the founder of Youth Development Inc., a nonprofit group that works with the Police Department and other agencies to house and rehabilitate runaways and young offenders.

Though questions were raised as to whether Kolender should have reported the loan on his 1984 statement of economic interest, the San Diego city attorney’s office ruled that, as an appointed public official, he is only required to report gifts or income from firms that do business with the city. Neither the San Diego Crime Commission nor Youth Development Inc. receive payment for their services, the city attorney’s office found.

- In December, 1984, Joan Kroc, one of the richest people in the country and owner of the Padres, gave Kolender a vacation in Palm Springs, according to the chief’s economic disclosure statement. The Police Department provides security for Padres home games. Kroc’s daughter is Linda Smith, who had a traffic citation dismissed in 1982.

Kolender’s disclosure statements also show that he accepted a trip to the Olympics in August, 1984, from the general manager of Pacific Bell, and a ticket to a fund-raising event in Los Angeles for Gov. Deukmejian in June, 1985, from a San Diego Gas & Electric Co. official.

- In 1981 Kolender at first accepted, then returned, a large oil painting of himself by Suzanne Arthimese. Taylor wrote in her diary that she had to check out a police van to haul the painting to Kolender’s home in Tierrasanta, before bringing it back.

Arthimese said it was her idea to donate the painting. But she said she wasn’t aware that Kolender had the painting hauled to his home, and that she intended that the portrait hang in police headquarters.

“I would like the signed paintings of important people to be hanging in public buildings as they are in cities in the East, as they are in Europe,” Arthimese said.

Asked why the painting was returned, Arthimese said, “I painted a large painting, and they needed more wall space.”

She said that, after talking with Kolender’s wife, she is hopeful that the painting will be placed in the Police Department’s new seven-story headquarters at 14th Street and Broadway.

- Kolender, who earns $76,800 a year, uses a discount laundry and dry-cleaning service run by students in the San Diego Community College District’s Skills Center, a program to help people learn trades.

Students in the laundry and dry-cleaning class, at 902 12th St., take in the clothes and clean them for only the cost of materials, said James A. Womack, dean of the center. Prices are cheap--dry cleaning is 50 cents per article of clothing and laundry is 25 cents a shirt, he said.

“We do not encourage the public” to use the laundry, Womack said. “We really want to have students and employees because we cannot handle the business from the public. But the public is not denied access.”

Womack said Kolender, who was appointed to the state’s Community College Board, learned about the laundry from his friend, Phil del Campo. On Friday, the police chief had a suit and an overcoat in for dry cleaning, Womack said.

Kolender apparently has been using the discount cleaning service since July, 1981, when he sent Officer Taylor to pick up his laundry.

Cadets at the San Diego Police Academy are instructed not to accept any free gifts, Lt. William Bennett said.

“We have a department policy that says we will not accept gratuities,” he said, “whether it be a cup of coffee or a free meal or a discount meal.”

Bennett said the academy staff teaches the cadets “the possible repercussions if some person standing in line sees an officer take a free cup of coffee. They will say, ‘Ah, vice and corruption running rampant in the Police Department.’ Or the owner might have good intentions at the time, but five to six weeks down the line, he may ask a favor of you.”

In April, an officer was disciplined for taking a police trainee to Roberto’s, a restaurant that offers discounts to police officers. Even though the officer paid full price for his meal, he was reprimanded for failing to make sure that the trainee paid full price.

“It’s just run-of-the-mill stuff,” Thistle said of the discipline. “They just run across my desk all the time.”