Caggiano Emerges on Top in Funding : Election: The incumbent has raised $12,400, but three others in the race for three City Council seats also have financial backing from a grass-roots organization.

Councilman Mike Caggiano has emerged as the top money-raiser among 20 candidates vying for three seats on Malibu’s City Council on Tuesday.

After getting off to a slow start, Caggiano raised nearly $8,500 in March to push his contributions to more than $12,400, campaign finance records show.

However, thanks to support from the Malibu Grassroots Movement, Councilwoman Carolyn Van Horn and contenders Jeff Kramer and Joan House continue to be the best-heeled candidates in the race.

The so-called grass-roots movement, or MGM, which aims to unseat Caggiano and fellow incumbent Missy Zeitsoff, raised $6,295 in March, bringing its total for the campaign to more than $21,000. The amount does not include about $10,000 in ad space and personal services from an advertising executive who is a member of the group.

Kramer, Van Horn and House were just behind Caggiano in raising funds of their own. Thus far, records show, Kramer has raised $9,100, Van Horn $8,210 and House $7,005.

None of the figures include loans or contributions from family members or the candidates themselves.

Meanwhile, three candidates who have the backing of Citizens United for a Stable Malibu make up a second tier of fund-raisers. Jeff Jennings has raised $4,878, Frank Basso $4,485 and Paul Grisanti $4,375. As of Wednesday, neither Basso nor Grisanti had filed campaign reports for March.

The Citizens United group, a political action committee formed last month to countervail the efforts of MGM, reported contributions of $4,225.

Citizens United reported contributions of $1,000 each from Dan W. Lufkin, whom it lists as a Malibu architect, and Edward R. Sacks, whom it lists as a Florida businessman.

The group contends that the contributions do not violate a city ordinance that sets a $500 limit on campaign contributions because Citizens United was set up as a statewide political action committee not intended merely to support or oppose local candidates, spokeswoman Joy Ellis said.

Among other candidates, Zeitsoff has raised $2,750, Dennis Sinclair $2,025, Charles (Chip) Post $1,700 and Emily Harlow $1,250. Sinclair had not filed a campaign disclosure report for March as of Wednesday.

Harlow has lent herself $9,000, House reports contributions of $4,800 from herself and family members, Post has raised $3,250 from himself and family members, and Paula Login has lent her campaign $4,400.

Caggiano’s emergence as the leading money-raiser coincided with a stepped-up attack against him this week from MGM, whose leaders accused the councilman of inflating his resume as a public policy analyst.

The group took aim at campaign literature in which Caggiano said he has “provided management advice, financial analysis and problem-solving skills for over 30 U. S. cities.”

MGM released letters from officials in nine cities and one county Caggiano listed in which the officials responded that they had no record of Caggiano’s having done work for them.

“Mr. Caggiano has exaggerated at best and lied at worst,” MGM President Gene Wood said.

Caggiano angrily disputed the allegations, calling them “a last-minute attempt at slander” and “completely false.”

The councilman made available to The Times several published studies he either authored or contributed to between 1979 and 1990 involving seven of the entities, adding that a criminal justice study he did involving the other three cities was done under condition that the cities not be publicly identified.

He said it was “not in the least surprising or noteworthy” that none of the cities MGM contacted had records of his having done work for them because in each case, he was paid by the RAND Corp., where he worked as a consultant, or the Ford Foundation.

The councilman was not the only candidate to draw fire from opponents this week.

In an anonymous letter mailed to The Times and other news organizations, opponents of Grisanti tried to link the candidate to a request by backers of a commercial project to postpone a hearing on whether to allow the project to go forward until after the election.

The City Council had been scheduled to hear the matter Tuesday, but Richard Scott, an attorney for the project, who is also a Grisanti supporter, asked that the matter be postponed until April 21.

Grisanti is among about a dozen limited partners in the proposed office complex at 22619 Pacific Coast Highway.

The project’s backers contend a financial hardship and want the project exempted from the city’s ban on new commercial development. Scott said he asked that the matter be delayed because the project’s two general partners had longstanding out-of-town business commitments and could not attend the hearing.

“I suppose it’s an attempt to embarrass me,” Grisanti said, “but I’ve expressed no interest in having the matter postponed or unpostponed.”