Liquor Tab Uncorks a Controversy : Expenses: College district trustees charged $413 in alcohol purchases to the public during four business dinners last year. The board may now enact a booze ban.

Facing criticism that liquor was served at informal, off-campus board meetings at taxpayers’ expense, Rancho Santiago College District trustees will decide Monday whether to ban that practice in the future.

Board member Charles W. (Pete) Maddox has raised the issue after noticing that a $2,545 bill at the Antonello Ristorante in Santa Ana for four nights of board activities there in August, 1991, apparently included a $413.75 tab for alcoholic beverages.

“The real key to this (proposal) is the willingness to defraud the taxpayers” in the past, Maddox said.

Recalling the series of dinner meetings held to interview four finalists for the post of chancellor--dinners that included servings of veal piccata, swordfish, salmon, pasta, fettuccine and souffles--Maddox said he was appalled by the extravagance.

“They reminded me of all these old-time movies, sitting around the king’s table, sucking up all this wine,” which they ordered by the bottle, Maddox said.

He added that the move to include the bar bills as legitimate meal expenses was spearheaded by former board members Rudy Montejano and John Dowden, as well as current members Shirley Ralston and Carol Enos--a four-vote majority. Maddox said that he, Brian E. Conley and Michael Ortell--the balance of the board’s members--were powerless to stop them.

Ralston and Enos denied the charges, which they said are the result of a long-simmering feud with Maddox. Montejano now lives in Evansville, Ind., and could not be reached for comment.

Former member Dowden defended the practice, adding that dinner meetings tested the ability of the job candidates to mix socially.

“They were called (board) meetings because this is the only way public funds could have been expended for that purpose,” Dowden said, adding that Maddox was simply creating an issue to embarrass the district.

Dowden, a founding board member who stepped down last year after serving two decades, said that in addition to dinner-interview meetings, board members attended daylong “work sessions” at hotels where alcoholic drinks were served at the district’s expense.

And Maddox was also accused of attempting to discredit Enos and Ralston.

“Why is he raising this a year later?” asked Enos, who used words such as “frivolous,” “specious,” and “bizarre” while responding to the criticism. “The only reason he is doing this, given the fact that this happened a year ago, is that he’s mad at somebody and just trying to get back at them.”

Maddox responded that he learned the details of the charges in September but waited until after the November election to make his allegations to avoid the appearance of acting with political motivations.

Despite the criticism of Maddox, a majority of board members said they will support the new policy.

It states that “no alcohol will be consumed by any member of the Board of Trustees at any official meeting where the business of the district is being conducted . . . (and) no public funds will be used to cover the cost of alcohol consumption at any meeting of the board for any reason.”

Chancellor Vivian Blevins, who was hired as the result of that interview process but did not drink alcoholic beverages the night she attended, said the state Education Code does not forbid drinking wine with dinner.

Since becoming chancellor, she said all meetings of the board, except one, have been held on campus, and that the practice was discontinued before the policy was proposed by Maddox.

The itemized bills for the meetings at Antonello on file with the Orange County Department of Education do not specify that liquor was served. Instead, those beverages appear to be listed under the heading of “special foods,” which for the four nights cost $413.75. Those attending said that not everyone drank wine each evening.

Dowden, Enos and Ralston said drinking was limited to a glass or two of wine per person. Enos and Ralston also said they believed that Interim Chancellor Lincoln Hall was personally going to take care of the bill, and that no one intended to pass the cost of drinks on to the district.

But Hall, who is now a consultant in Northern California, said he did not pay the bill. He recalled that the board members had discussed separating the bar tab from the meals, but believes that failure to do so was an oversight.

Hall also agreed that drinking was moderate. “This was pretty serious business. They were making sure that they were clearheaded and making a wise decision.”

Still, Maddox said that the dinners at Antonello were “the tip of the iceberg.”

He pointed to another “interview” meeting in May, 1989, where dinner was served for seven at Cafe Francais in Orange and included liquor. The bill on file at the Orange County Department of Education shows a total of $473.25 and does not separate the meals from beverages.

“Liquor was served, and as far as I know, the taxpayers paid for it,” Dowden said, recalling that dinner and other similar meetings.

But he discounted the implication that the board is “carousing” on public funds.

“This is an organization of $50 million or $60 million, and somebody is worried about a bar bill that might be a couple of hundred dollars. Rancho Santiago has a hell of a lot more to worry about, rather than when the district should pick up the cost of meals and drinks when they are on official business,” Dowden said.

But Maddox pointed out that these type of expenses chip away at the dwindling revenue coming into the district.

This year alone, the financially strapped district had to slash its budget by $7.2 million to $66.7 million and will cut weekend classes and raise some student fees for the spring semester.

Meanwhile, Ralston criticized the proposed “anti-liquor” policy, saying, “I think it’s kind of silly and sounds to me very restrictive.”

While questioning the motive behind the proposal, Enos said she would support it.

Conley, who is now president of the board, and Ortell--both allies of Maddox--did not respond to telephone calls.

Tom Saenz, who will be attending his first meeting as a board member Monday, said he did not know why the policy was being proposed. “I was not on the board at the time. On the surface, I would tend to agree with a policy of that type, but I don’t know all the facts.”

New board member Enriqueta Ramos supports the proposed rules changes.

She said that when she learned of the dinner and drinks at Antonello, she thought both were excessive. “I thought, ‘What did they eat? My goodness. Did they buy the place?’ It’s incredible.”