Irvine Co. PAC Donation to Wieder Spurs Vote Challenge

The woman who wrote the county’s campaign finance-reform ordinance filed a complaint Monday with the district attorney’s office, alleging that Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder and the Irvine Co. violated the ordinance last month.

Shirley Grindle, who in 1977 headed the drive for the TIN CUP (Time Is Now, Clean Up Politics) ordinance, is asking that Wieder’s April 27 vote for a development agreement covering the Irvine Co.’s Laguna Laurel project in Laguna Canyon be voided.

Grindle contends that a $2,500 contribution March 10 from the Irvine Co. Employees Political Action Committee to Wieder’s congressional campaign should have prohibited her from voting on any matter affecting the Irvine Co.

Her contention is disputed by Irvine Co. officials and County Counsel Adrian Kuyper, the Board of Supervisors’ chief attorney. Wieder, who is running for the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach), says Kuyper’s advice was sought before the contribution was accepted.

The Laguna Laurel development agreement, which would protect the project from future land-use restrictions such as the countywide slow-growth initiative on the June 7 ballot, was approved on a 3-2 vote. If Wieder’s vote were declared invalid, the future of the project would be thrown into doubt.

Grindle said the complaint she filed with the district attorney also asks that the Irvine Co. Employees Political Action Committee be prosecuted for not reporting the $2,500 contribution to the registrar of voters within 30 days, as she says the TIN CUP ordinance requires.

The PAC contribution should have barred Wieder’s vote on a matter affecting the Irvine Co., Grindle said, because the company and its political action committee are indistinguishable from one another. Top Irvine Co. officials contribute most of the money disbursed by the committee and decide which candidates get the money, Grindle said.

“How do you distinguish the company from the top people who run it?” Grindle asked. “They benefit when a project is approved.”

Irvine Co. officials dispute Grindle’s claims, saying the political action committee, known as ICEPAC, was organized and is operated independently of the company and pursuant to the legal advice of private attorneys. They also maintain that ICEPAC, as a federal political action committee, is not bound by county laws.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Maurice L. Evans confirmed that Grindle had “set forth some concerns” about the ICEPAC contribution in a letter delivered to him Monday morning, but he would not discuss its contents.

Evans said the district attorney’s office would look into the matter as soon as possible but declined further comment. Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks was in Washington, D.C., Monday and could not be reached for comment.

Grindle said she had been contacted Monday morning before she filed her complaint by Irvine Co. senior vice president Gary H. Hunt, who she said wanted to meet with her.

“He didn’t want me to file the complaint,” Grindle said, adding that she refused to meet with Hunt.

The TIN CUP ordinance prohibits a supervisor from voting on matters affecting a major campaign contributor, defined currently as one who has given the supervisor more than $1,739 during a four-year period.

Chip Nielsen, a San Francisco lawyer whose firm advises the Irvine Co. on political matters, said federal law prohibits the Irvine Co., as a corporate entity, from donating money to ICEPAC or to any other federal political action committee.

“The Irvine Co. has not contributed to Wieder and doesn’t have to worry,” he said.

ICEPAC was created six years ago, Irvine Co. officials said, under federal rules that allow labor unions and corporations to sponsor political action committees for their members or employees.

Judy Frutig, an Irvine Co. spokeswoman, maintained that ICEPAC is “absolutely independent” of the Irvine Co. under federal law.

Jack Flanigan, an Irvine Co. vice president and manager of the PAC, said the committee was created so Irvine Co. employees could pool their money to make contributions to political causes.

Flanigan said he makes final decisions about who gets the PAC money with help from a six-member committee that includes “one vice president, a couple of directors and a couple of managers” of the Irvine Co.

Irvine Co. officials would not name the people who sit on the committee.

Monday evening, the company issued a written statement saying it has “voluntarily taken the initiative to fully discuss the operation of ICEPAC with Orange County Counsel Adrian Kuyper. We have requested a similar meeting with the district attorney’s office.”

Cites Opinions

The statement said that in making the contribution to Wieder’s campaign, ICEPAC “relied upon several published legal opinions by Orange County counsel dating back to 1980, as well as separate legal advice from its own counsel based further upon analysis of extensive state and federal campaign laws.”

Flanigan said last week that the research was done by what he called “a battery” of Irvine Co. lawyers.

Wieder said the $2,500 contribution to her campaign for the Republican nomination in the 42nd Congressional District, which straddles the boundary between Orange and Los Angeles counties, came at a campaign kickoff dinner in Seal Beach. ICEPAC, she said, bought five $500 tickets to the dinner.

Wieder since has voted on at least two matters affecting the Irvine Co.--the Irvine Coast development agreement, which was approved by the board on a 4-1 vote on April 20, and the controversial Laguna Laurel agreement. Supervisor Roger R. Stanton voted against the Irvine Coast development agreement, and Stanton and Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez voted against the Laguna Laurel agreement.

The same day that the Laguna Laurel agreement was approved, the county registrar of voters received Wieder’s federal campaign finance disclosure forms. A few days later, ICEPAC was added to the list of Wieder’s major campaign contributors that is updated by the registrar monthly under the terms of the TIN CUP ordinance.

Knew of Contribution

Wieder said she knew of the contribution when she voted on Laguna Laurel and added that her campaign has been “squeaky careful” about making sure such donations didn’t violate the TIN CUP ordinance.

Wieder said her campaign officials sought advice in March from the county counsel on whether the contribution “bumped into” the TIN CUP ordinance and were told that it did not.

Dana Reed, a lawyer who volunteers his services to the Wieder campaign and also has done work for the Irvine Co., said that to his knowledge the only advice sought specifically on the ICEPAC contribution was requested last week. He said Wieder may have been been referring to advice sought in February or March about another employee PAC.

In both cases, Reed said, he was advised that as long as the PACs were separate from the companies involved, the contributions would not violate the TIN CUP ordinance.

In interviews last week, Kuyper would not talk specifically about ICEPAC or its donation to Wieder. Speaking in general terms, however, he said an employees’ political action committee could be so dominated by the company involved that it could not be considered independent under the law.

“If the board of directors, for instance, just sits down at a meeting and says ‘now we’re the PAC,’ then I don’t think you can call that independent,” he said.

To determine whether a political action committee is sufficiently independent of the company, he said, one would have to look at several relevant factors. Among them would be the extent to which contributions are truly voluntary and whether they are taken as a percentage of the employees’ salaries.

After receiving a call Friday evening from Irvine Co. senior vice president Hunt, Kuyper contacted The Times and said he considered ICEPAC “outside the purview” of the TIN CUP ordinance.

“He said Donald Bren does not make the decisions, and that is crucial,” Kuyper said of his conversation with Hunt.

A vote of a supervisor who was found guilty of a TIN CUP violation would be voided, Kuyper said. If that action resulted in a tie vote, as it would in the case of the Laguna Laurel development agreement if Wieder’s vote were rescinded, the matter in question would have to be brought back before the board.

Grindle and Kuyper agreed that the legality of Wieder’s vote is now a decision for the district attorney.

The ICEPAC contribution “jumped out at me” from the registrar’s list of Wieder’s major contributors, Grindle said.

She said Irvine Co. executive Michael Stockstill told her in a phone conversation that 60% to 70% of the PAC’s money came from top-ranking Irvine Co. officials.

“Some of these people hold Irvine Co. stock and are in bonus programs, so you can’t tell me they are not beneficiaries of Wieder’s vote,” Grindle said Monday. “If I were in her (Wieder’s) shoes, I would have disqualified myself from voting for anything having to do with the Irvine Co.”

Her failure to do so, Grindle said, “is against the intent” of the TIN CUP ordinance.

Stockstill, who said he is the former manager of ICEPAC, referred questions to Irvine Co. public relations officials. He said he was not in a position to discuss the PAC.

A review of disclosure reports filed by ICEPAC with the Federal Elections Commission shows 80% of the contributors listed in a report for the last half of 1987 hold high positions in the company.

Kuyper said no supervisor has ever been prosecuted for violating the TIN CUP ordinance. A violation is a misdemeanor, he said, that carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a $500 fine.

Though the applicability of the TIN CUP ordinance to a contribution to a congressional race has never been tested in court, Orange County Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ryan ruled in 1985 that the ordinance applied to contributions to a campaign for statewide office. That ruling came in a case involving then-Supervisor Bruce Nestande.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO IRVINE COMPANY EMPLOYEE PAC

The following list of contributors to the Irvine Co. Employee Political Action Committee is from public disclosure statements required by the

federal government. The documents cover the nine-month period of July 1, 1987, through March 31, 1988.

Contributor Title Daniel G. Beals Sr. Director, Human Resources, Irvine Co. Michael P. Bissell VP, Irvine Co. Pamela J. Engebretson Director, Policy Issues, Irvine Co. Dean A. Buchinger Assistant Gen. Mgr., Agriculture, Irvine Co. Jerome F. Collins Director, Corp. Communications, Irvine Co. Hugh B. Fitzpatrick Sr. Sr. Dir., Transportation Issues, Irvine Co. Warren D. Fix VP, Irvine Co. John C. Flanigan VP, Irvine Co. Monica Florian VP, Irvine Co. Susan L. Graves Director, Mkt. Communications, Irvine Co. Charles K. Greer Sr. Dir., Community Development, Irvine Co. Gary H. Hunt VP/Assistant to Chairman, Irvine Co. James T. Kelley President, Hotel Division, Irvine Co. Benjamin V. Lambert Member, Board of Directors, Irvine Co. Michael J. LeBlanc Director, Government Relations, Irvine Co. Michael Lutton VP, Irvine Co. Howard P. Marguleas CEO, Sun World Corp., Member, Board of Directors, Irvine Co. Wm. H. McFarland Executive VP, Irvine Co. J. Donald McNutt President, Community Cablevision, Irvine Co. Richard E. Moran Jr. VP/Treasurer, Irvine Co. David Mudgett President, Irvine Retail Prop. Thomas H. Nielsen President, Irvine Co. C. Bradley Olson Pres., Community Development, Irvine Co. Roland F. Osgood President, Irvine Pacific, Irvine Co. Roger M. Seitz VP, Irvine Co. Richard G. Sim President, Investment Prop., Irvine Co. Frank L. Smith VP, Irvine Co. Charles M. Stockstill Director, Corporate Affairs, Irvine Co. Satoru Tamaribuchi Mgr., Water/Waste Systems, Irvine Co. Jeffrey Wallace VP/General Counsel, Irvine Co. Patricia G. White VP, Irvine Co. Chick Wilette Pres., Irvine LD Mgt. Co., Irvine Co. Richard W. Williams VP, Irvine Co. Peter G. Zeughauser General Counsel, Irvine Co.

Amount Contributed Total Contributed Contributor Second Half First Three of 1987 Months of 1988 Daniel G. Beals $150 -- Michael P. Bissell $112 -- Pamela J. Engebretson $150 -- Dean A. Buchinger $120 -- Jerome F. Collins $180 -- Hugh B. Fitzpatrick Sr. $210 -- Warren D. Fix $300 -- John C. Flanigan $300 -- Monica Florian $500 -- Susan L. Graves $120 -- Charles K. Greer $240 -- Gary H. Hunt $246 -- James T. Kelley $250 -- Benjamin V. Lambert -- $5,000 Michael J. LeBlanc $150 -- Michael Lutton $246 -- Howard P. Marguleas -- $5,000 Wm. H. McFarland $246 -- J. Donald McNutt $150 -- Richard E. Moran Jr. $246 -- David Mudgett $300 -- Thomas H. Nielsen $500 $250 C. Bradley Olson $150 -- Roland F. Osgood $246 -- Roger M. Seitz $500 -- Richard G. Sim $500 -- Frank L. Smith $175 -- Charles M. Stockstill $180 -- Satoru Tamaribuchi $150 -- Jeffrey Wallace $120 -- Patricia G. White $99 -- Chick Wilette $300 -- Richard W. Williams $150 -- Peter G. Zeughauser $150 --

Total amount contributed to the PAC during last half of 1987: $9,256

Total amount contributed by those listed above during that period: $7,437

Percentage of total contributions to PAC in last half of 1987 by those listed above: 80.3%

Total amount contributed to PAC in first quarter of 1988: $13,582

Total amount contributed by those listed above during that period: $10,250

Percentage of total contributions to PAC in first quarter of 1988 by those listed above: 75.4%

Source: Federal Election Commission reports