Ex-Carson Official Exchanges Barbs With City Politicos

When Carson City Council relieved acting City Administrator Bill McKown of his duties last month, the ousted official asserted there were “strange political ramifications” to the council action that were best left unexplained until after his contract expired Sept. 15.

Now, in a lengthy interview, McKown has issued a string of accusations against just about every top official at City Hall--Mayor Kay Calas, council members Michael Mitoma, Vera DeWitt and John Anderson, City Treasurer Mary Custer, and City Attorney Glenn Watson.

And in separate interviews, they have responded with allegations about him.

McKown aimed his most severe attacks at Custer. She had differed with him--by $3,000, according to the treasurer--on the amount of his final paycheck. McKown said he will move from Inglewood to Carson and run against Custer in 1990.

The only top official McKown omitted in his sweeping attack was Councilwoman Sylvia Muise, who voiced objections to his selection as deputy city administrator a year ago and who made no secret that she did not like the way McKown ran City Hall when he became Carson’s top appointed official this summer.

McKown was named acting city administrator July 1, when City Administrator Dick Gunnarson retired.

McKown said he lost his job because he did not go along with council members who wanted promotions or jobs for certain employees and associates. He added that he ruffled feathers by uncovering mismanagement in a number of departments, including the treasurer’s office, which he said “blatantly” violated the city code. He said council members reneged on pledges to support him for the job as city administrator.

McKown said the council was swayed by Custer, who criticized him at the closed session in which the council decided to relieve him of all duties and let his contract lapse.

“What happened in the back room with Mary, God only knows,” he said.

Custer declined to say what she told the council in that meeting. She rejected McKown’s charges about mismanagement in her department, saying she runs it in accord with the advice of the city attorney.

Council members also reject McKown’s account of his fall from favor, saying he had tried a power play, insisting on a year’s contract as deputy administrator at a time when the city is searching for a permanent city administrator. Mitoma said that Custer’s criticism of McKown was not an important factor in the decision.

They also say that none of them had promised to support McKown.

“The guy is a pathological liar,” said Custer.

“He is obviously very upset that the council did not renew his contract. So he is grasping at straws to make allegations about the way the city conducts its business that, as far as I am concerned, are unfounded.”

Mitoma said: “This poor guy, there is something wrong with him . . . . Obviously, we made the right choice in not approving his contract.”

“What I am hearing,” said DeWitt, “is sour grapes.”

Watson added that McKown proceeded under the assumption that Carson has a “terrible City Hall” and that “he was the only salvation it had.”

McKown had four major accusations about Custer: He said that the treasurer is “blatantly out of bounds with the city code” in the running of her office; that state auditors have criticized her for failing to maintain proper checks and balances in the handling of gas tax revenues; that she has put the city in legal jeopardy by delaying payments to city contractors, and that she has withheld mileage reimbursements to city department heads “just for spite” because he and Gunnarson excluded her from meetings of department heads.

In response, Custer said that she consulted the city attorney when she first took office and remains guided by his advice. She said she delays issuing checks only when directed to do so by council action. Watson concurred, saying Custer follows his advice in running her office and that she uses proper procedure on bills questioned by the council.

Custer conceded that she had been criticized by state auditors for the handling of gas tax money, but she disputed the relevance of the criticism. She said she sent her response to the auditor’s report to council members. DeWitt said she was familiar with the issue: “We got a final report and we are doing fine. The city is handling funds correctly.”

Custer denied that she had held up mileage checks of department heads. “None of that is true,” she said.

On the paycheck dispute, Custer said that the way she figured McKown’s final paycheck had been approved by the council and the city attorney. At issue was a week’s leave, she said.

And finally, she said that she will not disclose what was discussed in the closed session where the council rejected McKown’s contract renewal. She sought the meeting and talked to the council for perhaps an hour, leaving before the vote.

Mitoma did talk briefly about the session. He said Custer told the council that McKown had frozen her out, withholding information and barring her from department-head meetings. Mitoma said that Custer also alleged that McKown had withheld information from them, too.

McKown said about Mitoma: “Mike decided he wouldn’t support me because I wouldn’t appoint one of his friends (to be) community safety director.”

Mitoma conceded that he was unhappy that an individual he thought highly of--Ernest Munoz--was not getting fair consideration. “I got very concerned that this is an inside situation where we are going to get the administration’s ‘friend’ approved for the job,” Mitoma said.

But Mitoma added that this was not the reason he voted against McKown’s contract renewal; the year-long contract was the main issue, he said.

McKown made a similar charge against DeWitt, saying that she durned against him after he refused to accept the application of Carson’s acting job clearinghouse manager, Joe Cerrado, for the post on a permanent basis. He accused her of imposing a citywide job freeze “because we wouldn’t take . . . Joe Cerrado.” McKown said that Cerrado “wasn’t qualified” and his application was late.

Cerrado has sued the city alleging discrimination because he is Latino. His application was filed one day late.

DeWitt, who denied she had pledged to support McKown, said she is upset that the Cerrado application had been rejected because the city has accepted other late applications. She added that the job freeze was not her sole doing, that the entire council wanted it. The council was concerned that a personnel reorganization, which McKown had a major role in implementing, was in “chaos,” she said.

Calas and Anderson also denied they had promised to support McKown. “He never did ask me,” said Calas.

About Watson, McKown said that the city attorney told the council on July 5 that his office had not been involved in labor negotiations but that legal bills showed that a lawyer at Watson’s firm had billed the city for about $3,600 for working on labor issues before that date.

“If we did, it would surprise me,” Watson said, adding that he would check details of his office’s billing.

With regard to problems in other departments, McKown said the city has been lax in monitoring its contract with Western Waste Industries, which collects trash in Carson. McKown estimated the city’s expenses in administering the contract--which Western Waste is required to pay under the contract--would run about $25,000 a year. He asserted that the fees never have been levied and now amount to about $100,000.

“If he had knowledge of this, then why didn’t he do something about it?” asked DeWitt.

Custer said that the amount is far less than $25,000 a year, but conceded that Western Waste has not been charged for these fees for several years. She said the contract was supposed to be monitored by the community safety director, who left. His replacement also left, and the Western Waste contract never received the attention it deserved.

She added that officials now are assembling data that will enable them to calculate the amount.

McKown also criticized handling of the city’s retirement account, which he said is vastly overfunded.

There is a $3-million surplus in the city’s retirement account, which state officials said stems from an accounting shift. State officials decided several years ago to count the market value, rather than the book value, of assets in retirement accounts.

Until this year, local officials had a restricted choice about what to do with the surplus. State officials recently decided that Carson--and the others with a surplus--may halt or reduce payments to the retirement fund until the surplus is absorbed. Carson is one of about 600 cities and public agencies with surpluses.