Councilman-Elect Returns Campaign Funds : Malibu: A controversial fund-raising event for slow-growth advocate Larry Wan raised about $9,000. Critics objected to support from developers.

Trying to contain the damage from what his campaign manager called a public relations disaster, Malibu City Councilman-elect Larry Wan returned the majority of contributions raised from a controversial fund-raiser last fall.

Critics at that time accused Wan, the former head of an influential slow-growth group, of cozying up to several wealthy real estate developers who attended the $500-a-plate breakfast.

“I decided that, given all the hoopla, it was the appropriate thing to do,” Wan said.

Although organizers of the Nov. 5 breakfast said the event raised more than $9,000, Wan reported contributions of $2,350 for the six-month period that ended Dec. 31, documents filed with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office show.

In an interview, Wan said he did not cash “a number of checks” from developers after deciding not to keep their money and that he did not report the checks as contributions because he assumed they had been returned by his campaign manager.

Wan, the former head of the influential slow-growth Malibu Township Council, said he was “disturbed to find out” that the checks were not mailed to the donors until two weeks ago.

By law, candidates are required to report a contribution, even if it is uncashed, unless the contribution is returned before the closing date of the reporting period in which it was given. In Wan’s case, the date was Dec. 31. Such violations are punishable by civil penalties or fines of up to $2,000, an official with the state Fair Political Practices Commission said.

The breakfast, at a Malibu-area restaurant, sparked immediate criticism from Wan’s opponents, including Mayor-elect Walt Keller, who accused him of selling out to real estate developers.

However, Keller sounded a conciliatory note last week, praising Wan for returning the money. “It was the right thing to do,” Keller said. “I think he saw that the breakfast was a mistake.”

Wan was the second-highest vote-getter, behind Keller, among the five slow-growth-oriented candidates elected to the City Council last June when Malibu voters approved cityhood. They will officially take office March 28, when Malibu becomes a city.

Wan has defended the fund-raiser as “an opportunity to reach out to various segments of the community.” But after news of the breakfast became public last November, he hastily announced that instead of using the money to help retire his campaign debt, he would donate it to an environmental group.

Wan spent $33,700 in his campaign, including $24,000 of his own funds.

Joy Ellis, Wan’s campaign manager, said she suggested that the money be returned instead of being donated to charity, adding, “I felt it was a little presumptive to, in a sense, tell somebody how their money should be spent.” Ellis said she was not involved in the fund-raiser.

Ellis said that although the event “was given in good faith, it was a (public relations) disaster, and we’ve tried in some way to heal the damage.”

Among those who attended were Lyn Konheim and John Perenchio, executives with Malibu Bay Co., one of Malibu’s largest landowners; Paul Flowers, a development consultant with ties to County Supervisor Deane Dana; at least two consultants with ties to the Adamson Cos., which wants to build a luxury hotel near Pepperdine University, and several real estate brokers and others with development interests. Developer Roy Crummer, who built the Malibu Colony Plaza shopping center, contributed but did not attend.

The event was put together by Wan supporter Susan McCabe, a former member of the California Coastal Commission who is now a consultant with Rose & Kindel, a Los Angeles consulting firm. The firm often represents developers before the commission and has represented the county in its unsuccessful bid to start work on a controversial sewer system in Malibu.

Not all of the invitees were developers.

Among the others were Coastal Commissioner Madelyn Glickfeld, a Malibu resident and longtime Wan supporter, and Dr. Susan Reynolds, president of the Malibu Chamber of Commerce. Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, contributed but did not attend.

All of the $2,350 Wan reported receiving during the last six months of the year was from individuals invited to the breakfast.

The contributors included the Rose & Kindel firm, represented by McCabe; architect Mike Barsocchini and attorney Richard Scott, both of whom have been active in a group that opposes a moratorium on single-family home construction once Malibu incorporates, and banker and businessman Ian Robertson, all of whom gave $500 each. Glickfeld contributed $250.

Asked why Wan returned some funds and not others, Geary Steffan, Wan’s campaign treasurer, said he believed that the $2,350 represented checks that had been made out to Wan, and that the remainder of the contributions were checks made out to Heal the Bay, an environmental group.

However, other Wan supporters offered a different explanation.

Ellis said Wan had decided to keep the contributions from people “with whom he had a relationship prior to the breakfast” and to return the others.

Wan said the contributions he kept were mailed to him before or after the event, and that as far as he knew he had returned those tendered at the breakfast.

“I never cashed the checks. In fact, I never even saw any of them except for maybe catching a glimpse of a few being passed to Susan (McCabe) at the breakfast,” Wan said. “As far as I was concerned, since I had decided not to keep the money, I didn’t consider them to be contributions (for reporting purposes).”

Wan called the matter “unfortunate,” saying “in business I’m used to doing a lot of delegating, and I guess in politics that’s sometimes not such a good idea.”

For the six-month period that ended in December, Wan’s contributions--even excluding the money Wan said he returned to developers--far exceeded those of the other four council members, none of whom had donations totaling more than $500.