Firm to Pay Fines for Laundering of Campaign Funds : Settlement: The development company is penalized $30,000 by a state panel for actions involving 1987 council and cityhood elections.

A Brentwood-based development firm has agreed to pay $30,000 in fines for illegally laundering campaign contributions in 1987 to a Los Angeles city councilwoman and a group that opposed cityhood for Santa Clarita, state investigators said Monday.

G. H. Palmer Associates agreed to the fines after an investigation by the state Fair Political Practices Commission found that the company had committed 15 violations of the California Political Reform Act, the commission reported.

The penalties are the maximum allowed under state law, a commission spokeswoman said.

The FPPC said the firm agreed to the settlement rather than face trial before an administrative law judge on the laundering charges. The deal, which was negotiated by FPPC staff members, is subject to approval by commission members, who are scheduled to meet Jan. 14.

The firm’s owner, Geoff Palmer, had no comment, said a woman who answered the phone in his office.

A commission spokeswoman said Palmer’s campaign contributions have been under investigation since an anonymous complaint was made in January, 1989.

FPPC investigators said Palmer’s company illegally funneled $3,500 to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus at a 1987 campaign fund-raising event. At the time, the company was building a large condominium complex in Woodland Hills, which is part of Picus’ council district.

The FPPC said six Palmer employees and the mother of one employee each gave the Picus campaign a $500 check--the maximum contribution council candidates are allowed to accept from one source under city law. But all the “donors” were later reimbursed by the company in violation of state laws requiring that the true source of campaign donations be listed on state-mandated disclosure reports, the FPPC said.

Picus returned the contributions after learning from news reports that the seven $500 checks were questionable.

Palmer used a similar scheme to disguise that it was the source of $7,000 given to a developer-backed political action committee that opposed an initiative aimed at incorporating the city of Santa Clarita.

Although the developers committee spent more than $46,000 against the measure, Proposition U, it was passed overwhelmingly by voters in the Nov. 3, 1987, election.

Cityhood advocates later said contributions to the developers committee, the Southern California Caucus, helped pay for slick mailers that had the unintentional effect of alerting voters to Proposition U and helping it pass.

At the time of the election, Palmer had applications pending for permits to build housing developments in and near Santa Clarita, the FPPC said.

The company had proposed spending $55 million on road and other improvements in exchange for permits to build 1,452 condominium units on 135 acres in Canyon Country. After five months of rancorous public hearings, the Santa Clarita City Council rejected that proposal last year.