Flynn Demands Accuser Prove Conflict Charge

Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn has challenged an Oxnard mayoral candidate to back up allegations that Flynn has a conflict of interest as a member of the Oxnard Airport Authority because he owns land near the airport.

The challenge came in the form of a letter from Flynn’s attorney, Donald J. Parrish, which was sent last week to candidate Scott Bollinger and his campaign consultant, Paul K. Dolan.

“I have advised Supervisor Flynn that if any untruthful statement is published . . . that a lawsuit can be filed by the injured party, and money damages recovered if the statement that is made is untrue,” said the letter from Parrish dated Aug. 10.

In an interview Monday, Dolan accused Flynn of trying to harass and intimidate Bollinger in an effort to bolster the campaign of another mayoral candidate, fellow Democrat Dorothy Maron.

“He’s trying to muddy the waters,” Dolan said. “It’s party politics.”

A spokeswoman for Flynn referred all questions on the matter to Parrish, who is out of town on vacation until the end of the month.

In an interview Monday, Maron called the allegations ridiculous.

Dolan and Bollinger raised questions about Flynn’s property interests near the airport in a July 16 press release. The statement asked Flynn to resign from the Oxnard Airport Authority “due to existing or recent real property conflicts of interest.” Dolan said he was referring to Flynn’s home on the 200 block of North L Street, which is about four blocks from the airport.

The statement said Dolan and Bollinger will, within the next two months, ask the Ventura County Superior Court for an order to force Flynn to resign from the airport commission.

The letter from Flynn’s attorney also said that Dolan and Bollinger “accuse Supervisor Flynn of deceptive activity involving obtaining funds to support his campaign.”

Dolan said he and Bollinger wrote to Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury in March, asking for an investigation into a St. Patrick’s Day party Flynn sponsored on March 18.

Bradbury’s office later cleared Flynn of intentionally failing to disclose that his party was actually a political fund-raiser, and said there were “no legal prohibitions that apply.”

The Dolan-Bollinger press release also called for the resignation of Maron from the Oxnard Airport Authority and for the resignation of Mayor Nao Takasugi from the Ventura County Airport Land Use Commission for the same alleged conflict of interest reasons.

However, according to documents filed in March with the state Fair Political Practices Commission, Maron and Takasugi own no property within 10 blocks of the airport.

Dolan said Maron once owned an interest in a proposed business park development across the street from the airport.

Maron said she no longer has interests near the airport, and that the only land she owns is her home on the 500 block of Glenwood Drive.

“I would never vote on a project in which I had a scintilla of interest,” she said.

As for Takasugi, Dolan said the mayor owns land that is under the flight path of the airport. He also said contributors to Takasugi’s campaigns benefit from decisions the mayor makes on the land-use commission.

The 1974 Political Reform Act says a public official has a conflict of interest if a decision made by the official has a foreseeable financial interest on the official or the official’s family, and if effect is distinguishable from its effects on the public in general.