Panel to Eye Hedgecock’s Work for Gambling Club

The San Diego City Council has instructed its new ethics commission and top city officials to examine former Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s activity on behalf of gambling interests that hope to open a $30-million card casino in Mission Valley.

With the casino proposal scheduled to go before the council next week, the council has asked City Manager Jack McGrory and San Diego’s Elections, Campaign and Governmental Ethics Advisory Board to investigate whether Hedgecock violated a city law requiring lobbyists to file disclosure forms with the city clerk’s office. The city attorney’s office also plans to review the matter.

In recent months, Hedgecock has contacted, in person and by telephone, McGrory, Police Chief Bob Burgreen, council members and other city officials on behalf of a Los Angeles County gaming club that hopes to consolidate a dozen local card rooms into a new gambling casino.

Although Hedgecock registered in 1986 as a lobbyist for a local developer, he has not notified the clerk’s office of his activity on behalf of the California Commerce Club, which has offered him a large lobbying fee and a share of the profits for help in putting together the deal for the proposed Las Vegas-style casino.

The city’s Municipal Code requires previously registered lobbyists to notify the clerk’s office when they change or add new clients on whose behalf they attempt to influence elected or appointed officials. City elections officer Joyce Lane said late Tuesday that Hedgecock had not yet updated his disclosure form to include the Commerce Club.

Violation of the law could be treated as a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. However, Lane said she was unaware of any past prosecutions for violations of the law.

“It’s not uncommon for people not to recognize that they need to fill out these forms whenever they talk to elected officials,” Hedgecock said. “But, if I have to file a form, I’ll do it.”

The ethics panel, which serves only in an advisory capacity to the council, lacks investigative powers, meaning that it could do little than report on Hedgecock’s activities. McGrory, meanwhile, said Tuesday that he intends to let the city attorney’s office take the lead in determining “whether any problems occurred.”

Hedgecock insists that he has not signed a formal lobbying contract to work on behalf of the casino proposal, and that he does “not anticipate having any (financial) interest” in the project. However, a document detailing the plan states that Hedgecock and an El Cajon card room owner could make more than $500,000 in fees and a 5% partnership share for assisting negotiations with local card room owners and city officials.

“I’ve not been paid anything for this, and basically all I’ve done is open a few doors, say, ‘You guys meet with those guys,’ ” Hedgecock stressed. “In fact, when the people from Commerce tried to hire me, I explained that it wouldn’t work because the mayor would be against anything I was involved with.”

Mayor Maureen O’Connor, whom Hedgecock defeated in the 1983 mayoral campaign--thereby earning her still-strong political enmity--has questioned the proposal, arguing that the city “should not be in the (gambling) business.”

The project, which the document predicts could make nearly $11 million annually and generate millions of dollars in revenue for the city, would contain 100 tables, a showroom and a gourmet restaurant.

Closing the smaller neighborhood card parlors and consolidating their licenses in the Mission Valley facility “makes a lot of economic sense for the city” and also could help alleviate crime concerns about the current game rooms, Hedgecock said.

“I think it’s a win-win situation for the city,” Hedgecock said. “Plus, all we’re talking about here is a poker parlor. That’s going on now and has been (since) statehood.”