OJAI : Businessman Quits Redevelopment Post

Department store owner Alan Rains has resigned from an Ojai advisory panel after the city attorney said three commissioners might be breaking conflict-of-interest laws.

Rains said he will leave the Ojai Redevelopment Commission because his downtown business holdings could require him to abstain from too many decisions.

“To be an effective commissioner, I think it is necessary for each to be able to express his or her opinions and cast their votes on the matters at hand,” Rains wrote in a letter to Mayor James D. Loebl.

Two other redevelopment commissioners, Richard Hultgen and Clifford North, may also have had conflicts of interest on a project that has already been approved, City Atty. Monte L. Widders said. The commissioners said they will refrain from any decisions connected with that developer because of their business dealings with his firm.

Loebl said the city owes a debt of gratitude to Rains for serving on the commission for 19 years.

“I don’t know of anyone who was more helpful in getting this (Arcade) project off the ground than Alan Rains,” Loebl said.

The retailer’s leadership played a key role in persuading a dozen shop owners to accept new taxes to help renovate the downtown Arcade and 13 adjacent stores. The city’s $1.7-million project brought the buildings up to state earthquake safety standards.