EL MODENA : D.A. Asked to Query Coordinator’s Loan

No conflict-of-interest laws were violated in the process by which federal grants for low-income projects were distributed in the El Modena area, according to a county report released Wednesday.

However, the county has asked the district attorney’s office to review the process by which Annie Quintana, the local coordinator of the program, obtained a Federal Housing Authority loan in 1981. The report found some conflicting information in Quintana’s loan application, but did not give details.

The county Administrative Office launched the investigation last month at the request of Supervisor Don R. Roth. The housing program first came under scrutiny in February after some community activists in El Modena, an unincorporated county area near Orange, sent two letters to federal Department of Housing and Urban Development alleging conflict of interest and mismanagement.

The letters charged that public meetings that help determine funding for low-income projects were rigged to exclude certain community members; that county housing officials tried to influence the outcome of one meeting; that Quintana should not have been supervising the program because she had previously been awarded HUD monies for several projects; and that Dhongchai (Bob) Pusavat, county housing office director, helped Quintana get county and federal funds while her daughter, Michele, was his employee.

Neither Pusavat nor Quintana were available for comment on Wednesday.

Sam Rodriguez, one of the community activists who made the conflict-of-interest allegations, called the report “the tip of the iceberg.”

“I’m satisfied in that it indicates and pinpoints some problems,” Rodriguez said. “(But) the ethics have not been talked about. We need to get some kind of assurance from the county that this investigation will be continued and that the county will search for the truth.”

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said the allegations had been forwarded to HUD for further investigation. John Sibley, deputy director of the County Environmental Management Agency, said that procedures in the housing department, including the public participation process, would be revised to make sure “we’re above reproach.

“We have no allegations of wrongdoing by our employees, but the fact that the community perceives it as a problem makes it an issue that we have to deal with,” Sibley said.