Hawaiian Gardens Rings Up Big Bill for Cellular Phones

Some City Council members have been talking their heads off ever since they got cellular phones for their cars last year--a perk that cost the taxpayers more than $12,000 last year.

The city spent $7,500 to purchase the phones for council members Kathleen Navejas, Domenic Ruggeri, H.M. (Lennie) Wagner and Esther Flores. The four racked up another $5,250 in phone bills last year.

Mayor Rosalie M. Sher does not have a phone. She said Wednesday that she believes the phones are “ridiculous” in a city as small as Hawaiian Gardens, which is less than a square mile wide and has a population of 13,639. “It’s a waste of money,” she said.

The mayor also said she would like to see the use of the phones discontinued, but at least two other council members would have to agree in order to get the necessary three votes. Sher did not know the council members had phones, she said, until the first bill showed up on a council agenda. There was no public vote and the purchase was not put out for bid, she said.

Ruggeri said he and Wagner asked the city administrator’s office to purchase the phones, and received them in late April. Shortly afterward, he said, Navejas asked for a phone. Flores requested a phone in September.

Ruggeri, a salesman for a Santa Fe Springs novelty supply company, said he needs a cellular phone so that city administrators can reach him in case there is an emergency. Navejas did not return calls from The Times.

Between April 30 and Dec. 15, the city paid about $5,250 for outgoing and incoming calls on the council members’ cellular phones, city records show. It costs about 45 cents a minute to talk on the cellular phones in the Los Angeles County area. Calls from greater distances cost more.

Navejas, for example, used her cellular city phone to make calls while traveling to Tucson, Ariz., in October, billing records show. Some of those calls cost the city 60 cents a minute. One call to Wagner’s home phone number, for example, lasted nine minutes and cost $5.40.

Navejas was the champion talker. During the first eight months, her cellular phone bill totaled $2,855.76--more than double that of any other council member.

During one billing period alone--Sept. 15 to Oct. 15--Navejas’ phone time cost $757.27. A review of the phone bills shows that some calls were made to her home and to her bridal-store business in Santa Ana.

Ruggeri was the next-biggest user of his cellular phone. His bills for the first eight months were $1,229.09. Wagner’s phone bill totaled about $600. Flores’ phone bills since September totaled $567.

The phone bills have become an issue in recall efforts that Navejas and Ruggeri helped launch against one another about three weeks ago. Ruggeri said Navejas’ bills were exorbitant and that she used the city phone for personal calls. Navejas accused Ruggeri of using his phone for personal business calls.

Both sides in the recall battle served notices on one another, but the city clerk rejected both notices, citing technical deficiencies. Both sides have vowed to prepare new notices.

Ruggeri acknowledged this week that if he gets a business call while he is in his car, he answers it and returns it when necessary. But he insists that the city breaks even because he does not ask to be reimbursed when he makes city calls on his home phone or on his business phone. However, of some 68 calls billed to his cellular phone one month, only seven were incoming calls. Ruggeri did not comment on the disparity between incoming and outgoing calls.

He says Navejas was reimbursed by the city for calls she made on her home phone.

The decision to purchase cellular phones has been criticized by some former council members.

“I would never have voted for car phones,” said Donald Schultze, who lost his reelection bid to Ruggeri last spring. Nobody asked for car phones when he was on the council, he said.

Schultze labeled the phones a waste of money and said they cannot be justified when the city is facing a severe budget deficit.

Hawaiian Gardens, according to one set of auditors it hired, could be facing an $800,000 deficit.

Former council member Maggie Vineyard also believes the phones are a waste of money. “You can spit across the city,” she said. “It’s just something to make them feel important. . . . There’s nothing important enough in the city that you can’t wait until you get home to make the call.”

Schultze, Vineyard, and Vineyard’s husband, Richard, have supported the recall effort against Navejas.

Council members in most nearby cities, with the exception of Norwalk, do not have car phones. All five Norwalk City Council members and three top administrators have cellular phones.