Robbins Says Business Associates Repaid Controversial Loans

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans made by the campaign committees of state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) to Robbins’ business associates were repaid this month, two campaign disclosure reports filed Thursday show.

More than $1 million lent by Robbins’ committees in recent years was targeted for review last week by the state attorney general’s office.

Although reiterating that he did nothing improper, Robbins said Thursday that he had requested prompt repayment of the committees’ outstanding loans after recent press accounts that raised questions of their propriety. Most of the loans were due in January, and many had been repaid before the first newspaper stories appeared, he said.

The campaign reports, covering the activities of the Robbins Birthday Dinner Committee and the Alan Robbins Campaign Committee for the second half of 1987, were filed with the secretary of state.

Although the loans to business associates were repaid this month--after the period covered by the reports--Robbins took the unusual step of noting these actions in the 1987 year-end filings. Such reports, which by law must be filed periodically, usually cover only transactions that take place during a prescribed period. Robbins said he provided the additional information in an attempt to quell the controversy “rather than leave the issue hanging until my next report in July.”

Robbins already had vowed that his political committees will no longer advance money to his business associates. He also pledged to set up a committee to approve loans to nonprofit organizations, Senate aides and supporters.

The attorney general’s office initiated its review of the committees’ loans after newspaper accounts detailed more than $1 million lent by Robbins’ committees in recent years. The review is said to be concentrating on the loans to business associates.

Among those who have fully repaid their loans, the campaign reports say, are Michael R. Goland and Robert Blake, both of whom were involved in a major Ventura County real-estate deal with Robbins when they received substantial loans from the senator’s campaign committees.

Goland, a wealthy San Fernando Valley businessman, repaid three 1986 loans totaling $265,000 this month, according to the reports. Goland had previously repaid two loans for $95,000 he received in 1984 from a Robbins campaign committee, records show.

Blake, an Orange County developer, this month also repaid four campaign committee advances he received totaling $107,500, the reports say. Blake, who received $85,000 through three loans in 1986, obtained another $22,500 from a Robbins committee on Aug. 26, one of the reports says.

Robbins, who has considerable real-estate holdings, says none of the loans to Goland, Blake or any other business associates were used in business transactions in which he was involved. None, he added, has resulted in any profit to him.

“I am bending over backwards to show that everything we’re doing is legal and proper,” Robbins said. “And we don’t want to have any appearance that anything we’re doing is illegal or improper.”

State election law does not prohibit the use of campaign funds as loans. But the law does ban personal use of the money if it “creates a substantial personal benefit” and does not have a “political, legislative or governmental purpose.”

Violation of the election law is a civil offense that carries a $500 fine or double the amount of the improper expenditure.

The year-end reports indicate that the Robbins Birthday Dinner Committee, which handles proceeds from the senator’s major annual fund-raiser, had $485,500 in outstanding loans and that the Alan Robbins Campaign Committee had $369,420. The total of $854,920 is higher than the $764,716 outstanding loans reported by the two committees in July, when Robbins’ last reports were filed.

But Robbins said the entire $485,500 was repaid to the birthday dinner committee this month and $252,532 was repaid to the campaign committee. About $116,888 still is owed to the campaign committee.

Those still owing money include Israel Today, a weekly newspaper in Van Nuys; A. Shiloh Inc., a shelter for battered women in Van Nuys; Charities Star Scene ‘87, which raises money for nonprofit groups, and controversial talk show host Wally George, Robbins said.

Robbins, who is chairman of the Senate Insurance, Claims and Corporations Committee, said he had intended that many of the loans be repaid this year rather than in 1987 or 1986 to take advantage of a change in the tax rates for income to political committees. The tax rate, he explained, on the interest paid on the loans was 46% in the past two years but will be 34% this year.

Two other Robbins associates who received loans also repaid them this month, the reports say. Melvyn Nachman, whose business dealings with Robbins are said to predate the loans he received, repaid an Oct. 16 loan of $93,000 in January, the report says.

And J. B. Carter Corp. a real-estate company whose president is Murray M. White, repaid a November, 1986, loan of $90,000 this month, according to a report. Robbins and White have been co-investors in Club California, a large apartment complex in North Hollywood, since the late 1960s.