Councilman Says He Voted to Aid Friend : Lancaster: William Pursley claims he did nothing wrong when he backed a reduction in required road widths for a former client’s project.

Lancaster Councilman William Pursley revealed Monday he voted to give a break from city regulations to a friend and former client. At the same time, state authorities said they were expanding a conflict-of-interest investigation into earlier revelations of Pursley’s activities.

Pursley, who already is being investigated by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and the state Fair Political Practices Commission, said he had voted on an issue before the council involving a friend who had paid him a $22,500 real estate commission just months earlier.

Pursley, in response to questions, said he did nothing wrong when he voted Dec. 17 in favor of granting a reduction in the road widths required under city regulations in a proposed industrial project in Lancaster. The appeal had been filed in mid-November by Lawrence Cushman, the engineer hired by the project’s developer.

The episode raises questions because state law generally bars politicians from voting on issues that involve their sources of income during the prior 12 months. And Pursley, a real estate agent, had received the commission from Cushman earlier in the year by serving as his agent in selling another parcel.

Lancaster City Attorney David McEwen said Pursley’s vote, however, might have been improper under state law only if the appeal had some financial impact on Cushman. McEwen said it would not have been improper under state law if the financial impact was solely on the owner of the 7.5-acre parcel, Alesco Development Co. of Tarzana.

Whether the issue had a financial impact on Cushman’s compensation for the project was unknown Monday. The Lancaster-based engineer and development consultant did not return phone calls from The Times.

As it turned out, the Lancaster council voted 3 to 2 to deny Cushman’s appeal, with Pursley and Councilman George Theophanis dissenting. The result of the council’s vote is irrelevant under the conflict-of-interest law.

Pursley, 63, has been friends with Cushman since before taking office in March, 1989. The two had been partners, along with others, in two Lancaster real estate ventures until they sold 320 acres in June, 1989. Cushman often represents developers before the council.

After the road-width exemption was rejected, an Alesco spokesman said, the developer was unable to carry out plans for a 110,000-square-foot industrial project at the southeast corner of Division Street and Avenue H-4. The developer recently listed the parcel for sale.

In related developments, a spokesman for the FPPC said the state’s political watchdog agency was expanding its nearly year-old conflict-of-interest probe of Pursley to include two issues reported by The Times on Saturday.

The agency will review Pursley’s failure to disclose, in a state-required report last month, his co-ownership of a five-acre site just outside Lancaster, the proposed site of a controversial shopping center. He also failed to report more than $54,000 in 1990 commission income, including the payment by Cushman. Pursley finally reported the income Friday.

All city officials are required by state law to file the reports listing their financial interests to determine whether they have complied with laws against profiting from their official powers.

The FPPC and the Los Angeles district attorney already were investigating Pursley for prior failure to report all his financial dealings on his 1989 report, and for voting in June, 1990, on a motion involving land for which he later received a sales commission of nearly $10,000.

Amid the mounting problems, Theophanis, long a political foe of Pursley’s, again demanded Monday that Pursley resign. Pursley refused, as he did when Theophanis made the same demand last fall when the first investigations into Pursley’s affairs became public.