SANTA ANA : 2 Chastised Over Swap Meet Charges

Two trustees of the Rancho Santiago Community College District were stripped of their memberships on county committees Monday by fellow board members who were angry that the pair had called for an investigation of a college swap meet on their own.

Board members Charles W. (Pete) Maddox and Brian Conley, who on Jan. 2 asked for an inquiry into the business dealings of El Mercado, were removed from their positions as official board representatives to various county organizations during an emotional two-hour debate.

“Your behavior and action is irresponsible and unexcusable,” Board President Shirley Ralston said in a prepared statement.

Maddox and Conley asked the Orange County district attorney’s office earlier this month to investigate allegations that Rancho Santiago College was not receiving its full share of profits from the Sunday swap meets. In a letter to Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace Wade, they said that the board had been unwilling to address the charges by some swap meet vendors and former employees.

Wade said the request is still being reviewed by his office.

According to an agreement with the Santiago Club, a nonprofit organization that operates the swap meet, the college is to receive 24% of gross revenues generated from admission fees and space rentals. The club contracts with Norton Western Ltd., a company owned by Santa Ana Councilman Richards L. Norton, to manage the swap meet.

Ralston said the board had planned to address the allegations at a two-day workshop scheduled for later this month. She said statements made in the letter by Maddox and Conley exposed the district to “potentially serious legal actions.”

“Your statements to the district attorney regarding the board’s position are not only untrue, but offensive to all of us,” she said.

Maddox said he went to the district attorney because he wasn’t able to get “straight answers” from fellow board members or the college administration regarding the allegations. He charged that the college’s close relationship to the Santiago Club would make it unlikely to investigate on its own.

“I’m probably going to do this again and I don’t care if I get scolded at every single board meeting,” Maddox said. “I asked if charges would be investigated; that’s the bottom line.”

Conley told the board: “I want us to have a clean swap meet. Maybe Mr. Maddox and I went too far, but there needs to be some real clarification and investigation here.”

For the first time, Norton publicly addressed the allegations being made against El Mercado, calling them “totally untrue.”

“The college has gotten every single dime promised and the Santiago Club has gotten every single dime promised,” Norton said.

He called the request for an investigation “a political game.”

“Mr. Maddox needed an issue to get elected on,” Norton said. “I want to let him know that he can’t run around shooting his mouth off without any facts.”

The request for an investigation came less than a week after an appeals court ruled that the city of Santa Ana has the power to remove El Mercado from the college parking lot because it violates a city zoning law.

The college has not yet decided whether or not it will appeal the decision.