Ex-Mayor Settles Suit With Church

Former Glendale Mayor Robert W. Garcin has agreed to an out-of-court settlement of 7-year-old legal malpractice suit filed against him by parishioners of a local church.

Garcin, head of the Burbank airport board and twice mayor, said the settlement reached last week ends a claim by the former United Community Church of Glendale that he was negligent while acting as a private attorney for failing to properly defend the church from multimillion-dollar lawsuits.

Garcin has repeatedly denied the charges, which have never been brought to full trial in court. He declined to disclose the amount of the settlement or the method of payment.

However, officials of the church at 333 E. Colorado St., renamed the Calvary Chapel of Glendale, said the settlement will enable the congregation to pay a $1.2-million court judgment, plus penalties, levied against the church in 1987 for unpaid loans to the Rev. William Steuart McBirnie, its former pastor and a nationally syndicated radio and television evangelist.

Members of the debt-ridden church earlier had feared they would have to sell the property to pay the court judgment, awarded to several hundred former parishioners who said that they had loaned money to McBirnie to build a library and for other improvements, but that the money was never repaid.

McBirnie stepped down as senior minister at the church in 1986. Several organizations he founded--including the church, the California Graduate School of Theology and the Concord Senior Housing Foundation in Pasadena--were forced into bankruptcy proceedings to forestall creditors.

McBirnie, who continues his “Voice of Americanism” radio show and the televised “Trumpets in the Morning” show, has said he does not control the bankrupt organizations and is not responsible for their finances. He now teaches at Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim.