Ex-Councilman Fined $16,000 in Conflict Case : Lancaster: William Pursley agrees not to dispute the penalty imposed by a state commission to settle 10 violations and failure to disclose financial interests.

Former Lancaster Councilman William Pursley has agreed to pay a $16,000 fine to the state Fair Political Practices Commission to settle 10 administrative violations involving a failure to disclose economic interests and conflicts of interest in projects he voted on.

In a proposed settlement released Monday, Pursley, a 64-year-old real estate agent who did not seek reelection in April, admitted violating the state’s Political Reform Act. He has already paid the fine, but the settlement worked out with the agency’s staff is subject to approval at the commission’s July 2 meeting.

“It was a situation where I paid dearly, the grief and all the things you go through,” said Pursley in an interview.

Pursley said Monday that he did not intentionally do anything wrong. He said he simply did not pay close enough attention to his legal obligations to avoid voting on matters where he had a conflict and to fully disclose his financial interests. “I think I was probably too careless,” said Pursley, a councilman from 1989 to 1992.

Pursley said Monday that the two-year FPPC investigation was not the reason he decided not to seek reelection this spring.

Pursley said he paid the fine out of his own pocket instead of using campaign funds. He faced a maximum fine of $20,000 for the 10 counts. Last year, the average fine levied by the FPPC was just under $12,000. The highest ever was $187,500.

According to the settlement, Pursley failed to disclose 48 items on his 1989 statement of economic interests, including 16 properties, 13 sources of personal income, eight sources of income or loans to businesses in which he had holdings, seven real estate commissions, two loans and two investments.

Seven of the 10 counts dealt with those violations. The remaining three centered on conflicts of interest. Two involved Pursley’s votes in December, 1989, for the environmental impact report and General Plan amendment permitting construction of Kaufman & Broad’s California Horizon housing tract in west Lancaster. About 560 homes are planned.

The votes were improper because Pursley only months before had received income from the developer when two partnerships in which he had a stake sold the developer 320 acres of land in east Lancaster for about $6.7 million. Pursley earned a $109,146 commission on the sale.

The third conflict-of-interest violation occurred when Pursley introduced and voted on a measure in June, 1990, to reduce the size of a city-required street easement along one edge of a nearly one-acre Lancaster parcel owned by one of his business partners. That measure helped the partner sell the land.

FPPC officials ruled the vote was improper because Pursley had played a role in helping to find the buyer and the property was already in escrow. Pursley should have abstained because he could have expected to receive at least a finder’s fee, although he ultimately received a full $9,780 commission on the sale.

Officials at the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office have had a separate criminal investigation pending against Pursley since late 1990 for that vote. But prosecutors could not be reached Monday for comment on the status of their inquiry.