Official’s Spree: Tiffany’s to Target : Expenses: Receipts show ex-city manager used Bradbury’s credit card to buy thousands of dollars of mostly upscale items.

During a years-long personal spending spree, the former city manager of Bradbury used public money to buy thousands of dollars of luxury items ranging from fine china to designer sunglasses and clothing, records from the affluent city’s files show.

Aurora (Dolly) Vollaire used the city’s BankAmericard MasterCard to buy everything from $275 worth of sunglasses in Laguna Beach to dinners at a famous New York City tourist spot to duty-free gifts in the Caribbean island of Barbados. Bradbury leaders say city business never required the purchase of these items or scores of others that are documented in city files and bank statements from November, 1989, to last January.

Those records, reviewed by The Times, show that city taxpayers paid for goods that ranged widely in price. At I. Magnin department stores, she charged more than $1,100. Vollaire also spent $912 in several trips to Gucci in Beverly Hills and made thousands of dollars in other purchases at such pricey outlets as Tiffany & Co. in New York City and Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Along the way, she bought $900 in fine china and used the city credit card in an F.A.O. Schwarz toy store, a Louis Vuitton luggage shop and Ann Taylor clothiers.

“I’ve been a local government lawyer for 20 years, and I’ve never known a city to give anybody a dress,” City Atty. C. Edward Dilkes said.

In addition to the city credit card, Vollaire received thousands more from Bradbury in the form of petty cash and reimbursements for purchases on her personal credit card, the records show.

It remains unclear how much money may have been misappropriated by Vollaire, Dilkes said. Although the city has secured a lien on more than $80,000 in Vollaire’s retirement funds for possible restitution, Dilkes said he did not know if that will be enough.

Vollaire submitted no receipts for many of her purchases. The receipts she did submit were scrunched together, folded on top of one another and stapled into lumpy masses that would discourage casual perusal, Dilkes said. Most of the receipts reviewed by The Times had been cut, often into finger-sized slivers, eliminating the vendor name and items purchased.

But Vollaire occasionally submitted intact receipts from upscale stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Bullock’s.

Vollaire, 53, was fired by the city last month after Bradbury gadfly Robert Penney Jr. and a preliminary audit uncovered irregularities in city spending involving the Bradbury credit card and other accounts.

The district attorney’s office is investigating the expenditures but declined to discuss the case.

Vollaire could not be reached for comment. In recent weeks, she has cloistered herself in her half-million-dollar home, which sits on a quiet street lined with jacarandas. Her husband, Sandy Levin, who answered the door of their Sierra Madre home, said: “All I can tell you is she’s a basket case.”

He added that attorneys had instructed his wife not to say anything. Her attorney, Rayford Fountain, also declined to comment.

But Councilwoman Beatrice LaPisto-Kirtley said of the long list of purchases at designer boutiques and department stores: “I cannot conceive of any of these being business-related. From time to time, we purchase flowers for people, or plaques, but I would not see any reason why it would be necessary to conduct city business in those stores.”

Vollaire’s expenditures are only the latest embarrassment to strike Bradbury, a city of 830 residents tucked in the foothills next to Angeles National Forest. In January, Penney confronted the city with evidence that over the last 14 years, $500,000 in county taxpayers money has financed private guards for Bradbury’s wealthiest gated enclave. The city has since stopped the practice. Then Penney went through the city trash bin in March and discovered evidence that Vollaire had spent public money on luxuries not related to city business.

The Pasadena accounting firm of McGladry & Pullen, which has performed Bradbury’s routine annual audits for years, has undertaken an examination of Vollaire’s spending that will date to at least 1983, when the city credit card was issued to her.

The auditors have told City Council members that the yearly audits paid for by the city did not include scrutiny of the Vollaire accounts, although they had said at a council meeting that they made spot checks.

City officials concede that Vollaire’s purchases slipped through the system of checks and balances. City Treasurer Betty Christensen, an unpaid appointee with no accounting experience, said she had thought the auditors would catch any irregularities.

The two most recent mayors, who in their respective stints over the last seven years approved the final expense lists and co-signed city checks, said they thought the treasurer and auditor were checking. Other council members say that when they approved city expenditures each month, Vollaire’s expenses were listed under categories that sounded legitimate.

With no college degree, Vollaire joined the city staff in 1971 under a federal work program, her salary paid for with federal grants. Two years later she became city manager and eventually worked as planning director, finance director and city clerk.

In the process, she gained sole access to the city bank accounts and credit card. The credit card, which has since been canceled, was issued to the city of Bradbury, with Vollaire listed as the sole authorized user. With such financial access, Vollaire, who had an annual salary of $69,000, made purchases more in line with the $105,000 median household income of the city she worked for.

From November, 1989, through last January, the city paid more than $63,000 to the Vollaire accounts now being investigated.

Bank statements detailing every city credit card purchase during that period indicate that of the $29,405 paid on the city credit card account to cover Vollaire’s purchases, more than half--$16,034--went to upscale boutiques, department stores, and Beverly Hills and New York City restaurants such as Tavern on the Green.

During the same period, Vollaire also spent more than $3,000 in city money on her Jaguar, expenses that, like the purchases at fine stores, were not sanctioned by the city.

“There was a time when she had a vehicle allowance, but that changed,” said Councilman John H. Richards, who has served on the council since 1984 and was mayor for six years.

An agreement in the mid-1980s took away her vehicle allowance and lumped it into her salary, giving her an ample raise, several council members said.

To track Vollaire’s purchases, The Times matched the amounts and dates on the cut-down receipts against the monthly bank statements on the city credit card, which are public documents. Many corresponded to luxury items, including $305 in designer clothing at Adrienne Vittadini in Beverly Hills and a midnight purchase of $237 on the Viking Serenade, a gambling cruise ship that travels between San Pedro and Ensenada.

City Atty. Dilkes said most of the expenditures were clearly improper. “There is no policy authorizing china and dresses,” he said.

Receipts that Vollaire left intact show the range of tastes.

* A May 10, 1992, receipt from Lucy Zahran Inc. revealed a $100 payment to the Costa Mesa dealers of crystal, antique silver and fine china. Bank statements and Lucy Zahran confirmed that Vollaire used the city credit card to pay off a $913.41 purchase of fine china in six installments between February and May. “I have files and files on this person,” said Zahran, who said she assumed Vollaire was using her own money.

* A July, 1991, receipt meant to justify a petty cash expense shows $21.35 spent at the Sharper Image for a “gel-filled insole.”

* A December, 1991, receipt submitted by Vollaire on the petty cash account lists the purchase of a Size 8 pair of red shoes for $129.90. Other receipts were submitted on that account for a $170 travel bag, and a $10.88 mock turtleneck from Target.

* On August 8, 1991, Vollaire took a trip to Laguna Beach, receipts show. Among the expenses she submitted was one for $275.40 to W.D. Harrison, an optometrist. A receptionist at the optometrist’s office checked the purchase and said it was for two pairs of Laura Biagiotti non-prescription sunglasses.

* A payment of $558.37 made to Vollaire’s credit card account in July, 1992, passed the council’s scrutiny itemized as “Computer and Misc.” But a receipt tucked into the files to justify the payment shows a $119 purchase at David Orgell, a Beverly Hills dealer of fine silver, crystal and china.

Vollaire also took the city credit card traveling.

On two trips to New York City in August and December, 1991, Vollaire charged more than $1,750 in seven days. A few of her haunts: Tiffany & Co., Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Ave., Fendi, the Plaza Hotel and the Russian Tea Room.

Council members say that they did not know she was in New York City and that the trips could not have been related to city affairs. The card also shows purchases at three gift shops in the Caribbean.

In addition to footing the bills for the city credit card, Bradbury paid more than $11,000 to the F & A Federal Credit Union to cover Vollaire’s personal Visa card from July, 1991, and last January; the monthly credit card statements that would show where the money was spent are protected from public disclosure because of privacy issues.

Of that amount, Vollaire submitted no receipts for $1,700 worth of expenses, and $7,280 worth of receipts were cut to slivers or otherwise altered. Vollaire did submit a few Bullock’s receipts and a $116 Saks Fifth Avenue receipt for a New York City purchase.

Although council members scanned the warrant registers each month and approved Vollaire’s expenditures, how and when her personal credit card made its way into city expenses remained a mystery. Most never knew that the account was Vollaire’s credit card account.

“I didn’t even know she was using a personal credit card for city business,” Mayor Audrey Hon said.