Mayor Retains Appointee Despite Residency Dispute

The president of the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission, whose removal was recommended by the city attorney because he was not a resident of the city, will remain in his post, a spokesman for Mayor Tom Bradley said.

Amarjit S. Marwah, who owns a home in the city of Malibu, was determined to be “neither properly registered to vote” nor “legally domiciled in this city” when appointed by Bradley to his post, City Atty. James K. Hahn said in a report prepared at the request of the mayor’s office.

“Dr. Marwah submitted a letter to the mayor, saying he resides in the city and will continue serving,” Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler said last week. In a letter dated May 1, Marwah told the mayor that last January he rented a residence in Los Angeles, Chandler said, and would transfer his driver’s license and voter registration to that address.

“The mayor has accepted his response,” Chandler said. He would not disclose the address.

Marwah declined comment.

Marwah, a dentist, has been a longtime Bradley supporter and one of the top contributors to Bradley campaigns for several years. Between 1983 and 1988, he made donations totaling $40,075. Bradley campaign records also indicate that Marwah has helped raise several thousand dollars in donations from others.

Chandler said the mayor’s office decided against seeking Marwah’s resignation because “the city attorney’s report was not certain of its conclusions.”

Although the report clearly recommended that Marwah resign or be removed, it reflected uncertainty, based on prior cases, about whether a court action to remove Marwah from office would succeed. “The law in this area is fairly complicated,” Assistant City Atty. Anthony Alprin said.

The mayor’s office had asked the city attorney to examine Marwah’s residency after The Times reported that Marwah owned no property in Los Angeles but maintained a 10-acre estate in Malibu. The city attorney’s report said that a commissioner such as Marwah is required under the Los Angeles Administrative Code to be a “qualified elector,” defined as one registered to vote at a residence in the city.

Since 1984, Marwah had been registered to vote from his Crenshaw-area dental office, which officials say was a violation of the state Election Code. But he re-registered in 1990, listing a friend’s address in Baldwin Hills.

In its report, the city attorney’s office questioned the validity of that registration as well and concluded that Marwah was not a “qualified elector” at the time of his last appointment to the commission, in 1989. The Cultural Heritage Commission designates city landmarks.

“Our views have not changed,” Alprin said of the report’s conclusions, “and no one has asked us for further advice.”

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder said Marwah had not submitted a new address.