CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : VENTURA : $27,000 Fine Levied for Interest Conflict

A former state job-training official from Oxnard, Robert Munoz, was fined $27,000 and placed on three years’ probation for violating the conflict-of-interest provisions of California’s Political Reform Act. Munoz, 57, now living in Barstow, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor criminal charges in Ventura County. Between 1986 and 1990, Munoz served as a member of the state Employment Training Panel, which awards job-training contracts. Munoz pleaded guilty to breaking the law when he voted in June 1990, to extend a job-training state contract with a Camarillo-based vegetable grower after receiving a consultant’s fee of about $40,000 from the grower. He also acknowledged that he failed to report $15,000 of income from a construction firm that built an electricity plant for the grower.