Deadline Set for Car Dealer to Avoid Ouster From Board
Gov. George Deukmejian said Friday that he has given Glendora automobile dealer Eminiano (Jun) Reodica until noon today to show why he should not immediately be removed from a board that hears appeals on decisions by the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
In a telegram sent Thursday to Reodica and his attorneys, the governor said that because Reodica’s business practices are under investigation by the DMV, “it appears to be inappropriate for you to continue as a member” of the New Motor Vehicle Board.
“Unless you provide me with information in support of your continued membership on the board within 48 hours, it is my intention to take immediate steps to remove you from that position,” Deukmejian said.
Tom Beermann, the governor’s assistant press secretary, said that Reodica’s attorneys at the Los Angeles firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue contacted Deukmejian’s office to indicate that they are trying to find Reodica, who is believed to be in the Philippines. Roger Hagerty, office administrator at the law firm, said the firm does not know Reodica’s whereabouts.
Licenses Suspended
Earlier this month, two financially troubled San Gabriel Valley car sales and finance companies headed by Reodica had their sales licenses suspended by the DMV and filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Deukmejian earlier this year reappointed Reodica to the nine-member New Motor Vehicle Board, even though the auto dealer had been fined $100,000 last December for selling used cars as new and failing to submit car registration information to the state in time. The DMV reportedly has levied fines of $100,000 or more against car dealerships only two other times.
A Deukmejian spokesman has said that before reappointing Reodica, the governor was made aware of the fine but was satisfied that the problems had been corrected after DMV Director Del Pierce talked to Reodica.
The Reodica affair followed Deukmejian to the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, where at a press conference Sunday the governor called Reodica a “great disappointment” to him.
Reodica has been a financial contributor to Deukmejian’s gubernatorial campaigns, and in 1978, Reodica bought his major new car dealership, Grand Chevrolet Inc. in Glendora, from the governor’s late cousin, also named George Deukmejian.
Kevin Brett, a spokesman for the governor, has acknowledged that Reodica talked to Deukmejian briefly earlier this month as both were boarding a plane from Hong Kong to Manila when the governor was traveling in the Far East. But he said the governor did not know then about the car dealer’s recent troubles and Reodica did not mention them.
Times staff writer Michael Milstein in Monrovia contributed to this story.
