Convention Center Parties Investigated : Billing: Executive committee is looking at events that were arranged by the center’s general manager and attended by his family or friends.

San Diego Convention Center board members are investigating the details of four private parties arranged by general manager Tom Liegler over the past 14 months, all of which included his family or friends and cost taxpayers $12,725.

The board’s three-member executive committee met for five hours Monday to question Liegler about two of the parties he arranged, one of which included family members and another that was attended by members of his golf association.

Liegler, who asked to take vacation time for the rest of this week while the committee continues its investigation, has told members he had planned all along to pay the $1,411 cost of the golfing party, according to Morgan Dene Oliver, the board’s president and chairman.

After the allegations surfaced Friday, Liegler decided to reimburse the Convention Center $745 for a party to which he invited 11 family members, an event Oliver described as a “judgment error” that “surprised and disappointed” him.

But Oliver said Liegler would neither be fired nor suspended for his actions. He said the executive committee will decide what, if any, punishment Liegler should receive.

Publicity about the parties is probably discipline enough, Oliver said, although the committee will come up with new rules and procedures as a result.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor has directed the city attorney and city manager to investigate the allegations and to report back to the City Council. The council appoints the board of directors, which runs the San Diego Convention Center Corp.

Liegler, hired as the center’s general manager and executive vice president in 1985, “is a man with 41 years experience and an excellent reputation. He has done a great job,” according to board member Mel Katz.

But his actions came under scrutiny last week by board members over four events he arranged dating back to February, 1990.

At that time, Liegler held a party for the Tom Club, a social group of San Diego business and civic leaders named Tom, of which he is a member. Hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, dessert and coffee were served for about 30 members and cost $852. The tab was paid by the Convention Center.

On Tuesday, Oliver defended the gathering as a proper promotional event because many of those who attended represent large corporations that might bring business to the center.

Also under investigation is an April 7, 1990, gathering of the International Assn. of Auditorium Managers, which cost $9,707 for dinner and cocktails served to 200 people. It also was paid for by the center.

A number of Liegler’s friends and business associates attended from Anaheim, where he had worked as director of that convention center and of Anaheim Stadium.

Oliver said the event was arranged for people in the convention business to offer feedback about the San Diego center, and that there is “no question as to its appropriateness.”

On Feb. 24, Liegler rented Convention Center space for a group of doctors--including his cousin from Orange County, a neurologist--who were said to be interested in using the center for a seminar. As the date approached, plans fell through and none of the physicians besides Liegler’s cousin was able to attend, Katz said.

“It was a perfect marketing use of the center, but the doctors couldn’t make it, so Tom told his cousin--since he would be in charge of arranging the seminar--to come down anyway and bring his son, and Tom would bring his wife and son and his son’s wife,” Katz said.

For 12 members of his family, the food cost $745, a sum Liegler said he will reimburse the Convention Center. Employees of the Convention Center receive a discount. In general, the public pays 40% more than center employees.

The latest party, held last Saturday, included 32 members of Liegler’s golfing club, called the Dana Group. Liegler told the committee he had planned to pay the $1,411 cost of the dinner.

Oliver said Tuesday that officials hope allegations about Liegler do not blunt the success the center has enjoyed over the past year.

“I am tolerant of the fact that Tom is a human being, and human beings make judgment errors,” he said.

Since it opened in November, 1989, the center has hosted more than 300 conventions, trade shows, consumer shows, seminars and meetings, and attracted more than a million people, far more than initial projections indicated. In that time, it has brought $6.5 million in revenues, officials said.