Slow-Growth Lawyer Gets FPPC Support in Dispute

The treasurer of the political action committee that sponsored the countywide slow-growth initiative on the June ballot denied Friday that he failed to report $5,500 that the committee paid his law firm in legal fees.

The state Fair Political Practices Commission agreed.

Meanwhile, Russ Burkett, co-founder of the PAC--Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control--said Friday that he was resigning over the alleged failure of the group’s lawyer-members to consult him and other board members before settling 9 of 11 anti-development lawsuits the group has filed since the beginning of the year. The lawsuits were settled for more than $80,000 in legal fees paid directly to Gregory A. Hile and his law partner, Belinda Blacketer.

Group co-founder Tom Rogers said Friday that he, too, may resign. He said he wants to remove himself from participation in the organization’s remaining lawsuits against developers because “I simply don’t like legal battles and never have.”

“I prefer to return to politics, and leave court battles to others,” Rogers said.

Earlier this week, Tom Harman, leader of the slow-growth forces in Huntington Beach, also resigned, pointing out that he had missed all of the group’s meetings and saying that he felt like an “odd man out” since all the other members were from south Orange County.

Rogers said he will reactivate a 1984 PAC called Citizens Against Unfair Taxation, which waged a small but successful campaign to defeat a 1-cent-per-dollar county sales tax for traffic improvements. Rogers and other opponents of the tax claimed that the transportation projects to be financed would do little to relieve congestion but would spur additional growth in the south county.

Some business leaders and county officials are considering a half-cent sales tax proposal for a countywide vote in 1989 or 1990. Rogers said his group would meet with proponents of such a tax to see if it is possible to avoid a repeat of the 1984 election battle.

On Friday, Hile, treasurer of Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control, denied Burkett’s statements made a day earlier that he had failed to report PAC payments to his law firm.

Listed as Lump Sum

Hile said he disclosed the amount on a mandatory campaign finance-disclosure form filed last week with the county registrar of voters but listed the amount--$5,500--as a lump sum on a line reserved for campaign payments that offset previously accrued expenses.

Hile said the amount was credited against $24,583 that Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control had owed his law firm as of May 17, the end of the prior campaign-reporting period.

A spokeswoman for the state Fair Political Practices Commission said Friday that payments on unpaid accrued expenses do not have to be itemized, nor do the recipients of the money have to be identified.

Burkett said that Hile had never submitted a bill for the services rendered by his law firm. But he acknowledged that the PAC had written checks to Blacketer and Hile anyway.

Hile and Blacketer are members of the board of Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control.

The PAC paid the legal fees in connection with Blacketer’s and Hile’s defense of the slow-growth initiative against pre-election court challenges. The initiative, Measure A, was defeated 56% to 44% on June 7.