Ex-Assistant City Manager Agrees to Pay Ethics Fine

The state Fair Political Practices Commission on Tuesday ratified an agreement in which Leonard Eliot, retired West Covina assistant city manager, agreed to pay an $18,000 fine related to an alleged conflict of interest and his failure to disclose it as required by the state Political Reform Act.

In an agreement negotiated with the commission staff, Eliot acknowledged that a partnership in which he had a stake owned an Orange Julius franchise that stood to benefit from actions he took in 1989 regarding the expansion and restoration of the West Covina Fashion Plaza. The Orange Julius outlet is located at the mall.

Eliot, who was on the city payroll until last March, also acknowledged that he failed to file required economic interest statements for 1987, 1988 and 1989. Moreover, once he filed the reports in March, 1990, he failed to disclose his 12% stake in the partnership, Renel Enterprises, according to commission documents.

Eliot’s income was not insubstantial. Between 1987 and 1989, Eliot’s share of the franchise’s gross amounted to about $47,000, the commission documents said.

But Philip Recht, Eliot’s lawyer, maintained in an interview on Tuesday that his client never “stood to make any money” on the mall expansion because his partnership interest in the Orange Julius franchise was structured so that it was due to end in August, 1991, two years before the shopping center project’s scheduled completion.

Recht also said that when Eliot considered becoming a partner in the franchise in 1976 he sought the opinion of the city attorney, who advised him that there was no legal prohibition against him holding an interest in the Orange Julius.

“Technically, there’s a violation,” Recht acknowledged. “But when you get into the guts of it . . . it’s pretty benign stuff.”