Local News in Brief : Mayor Denies Accusation

Lawndale Planning Commissioner Gary McDonald accused Mayor Sarann Kruse of violating the state’s open meeting law last year by calling two councilmen in an unsuccessful effort to remove Shirley Rudolph from the city’s Recreation, Parks and Social Services Commission.

In the council’s first meeting since the April 12 election, reelected Councilmen Harold E. Hofmann and Dan M. McKenzie agreed with McDonald’s account. They said Kruse called and asked them to vote to remove Rudolph from the commission. Rudolph is the wife of Councilman Larry Rudolph who, with two years left in his council term, unsuccessfully challenged Kruse in April for the two-year mayor’s term.

At the meeting Thursday night, Kruse denied asking Hofmann and McKenzie for their votes. “I never asked you or anyone else to remove anyone from a commission,” Kruse said.

McDonald said he plans to ask the district attorney’s office to investigate the possible violations of the open meeting law, called the Brown Act. The law requires elected officials to conduct public business in public.

In bringing accusations against Kruse, political allies McDonald, Hofmann, McKenzie and Larry Rudolph appeared to be retaliating against her for pre-election accusations made by her husband, Robert Kruse. He had asked the district attorney’s office and state Fair Political Practices Commission to investigate a letter in which a local developer asked Hofmann, McKenzie and Rudolph to form a political alliance on development issues. Robert Kruse said the letter amounted to an invitation to violate the Brown Act.