Challenge Over Alleged Contributions : Carson Councilman Dares Foe to Bet $1,000

Facing a hostile audience of mobile-home residents, Carson Councilman Michael Mitoma bet political rival Aaron Carter $1,000 that Carter could not support his contention that owners of mobile-home parks gave Mitoma $12,500 in 1986.

Carter said the statement, which appeared on one of his brochures when he ran for the council in a special election last year, was true but he declined to accept the wager.

The two men were speaking Tuesday at a candidates’ forum at the Colony Cove mobile-home park. In the April 12 election, mobile-home-park residents--long a potent political force in Carson because of their tendency to vote as a bloc--are being wooed with fervor. They are especially aroused now because the owners of the Avalon Carson and the Citation mobile-home parks have announced plans to close.

Brochure Questioned

At the meeting, Mitoma, who won in the 1987 election despite near-total shutouts in Colony Cove and Carson Harbor, the city’s two largest mobile-home parks, raised the issue of the 1987 Carter brochure and his contributions from owners of mobile-home parks. Mitoma told the audience that the brochure, which claimed he had received $12,500 from park owners, was false, and said in an interview later that he actually had received between $6,000 and $7,000 in an unsuccessful 1986 council race.

Before an audience of more than 100, Mitoma held up the Carter brochure. Turning to face Carter, Mitoma said: “I challenge you, Mr. Carter, my $1,000 to your $1,000, if you can prove it. . . . Are you willing to take that bet?”

Concerned About Image

Mitoma said he was concerned that mobile-home residents had voted against him because of information that was “not accurate.

. . . You were told I was going to dismantle the Mobile Home Rental Review Board. That is not true.”

Carter responded by referring to Mitoma’s position as president of the Carson-based Pacific Business Bank.

“I don’t have a bank,” Carter said, to applause. “The item is true but I would not bet.”

“That answers my question,” Mitoma said. “But you will have to answer to the Fair Political Practices Commission.”

The audience booed. “Go to court,” one woman shouted several times.

Mitoma said later that he has not filed a complaint with the state commission but may do so.

After the meeting, Carter said in an interview that he had documentation to back up the statement that Mitoma had received $12,500 in contributions from residents of mobile-home parks and would provide it soon. “Some of it was hidden,” he alleged.

Mitoma denied that he received secret contributions.

The statement about contributions was the second issue from the hotly disputed election of 1986 to come up at the forum.

The other concerned a $62.5-million libel suit brought by Mitoma against Carter and his council allies Sylvia Muise and Tom Mills concerning a brochure sent out in the final days of the 1986 campaign. The suit says the brochure linked Mitoma and his bank to drug-money laundering.

Mitoma, in his suit, denied any wrongdoing and accused his opponents of taking his testimony in a federal trial out of context to make it appear, falsely, that his bank was investigated for complicity in drug-money laundering. The defendants say they were merely trying to show Mitoma was lax in following federal regulations.

Asked by a resident of a mobile-home park about Mitoma’s lawsuit, Carter labeled it a nuisance suit, adding, “I have never backed off from a fight.”