Housing Project Managers to Assist in U.S. Probe

The management of a federally financed Lake View Terrace housing project hit by corruption allegations will discharge a resident manager and cooperate with federal officials investigating reports that employees accepted bribes from apartment-seekers, a spokesman said Friday.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the federal Inspector General’s office are looking into allegations that resident manager Blanca Aquino, a three-year employee at Lake View Terrace Apartments, accepted bribes, improperly bypassed a waiting list to place relatives in apartments, and stirred racial tensions between blacks and Latinos.

Michael Damron, a spokesman for Spieker Companies Inc., which manages the complex, said Aquino denies the allegations. Damron said the company had decided to replace her for administrative reasons weeks before complaints from tenants prompted U.S. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) to call for the investigation.