Oxnard Council Rejects Casino Proposal : Government: Vote may have been influenced by announcement of inquiry into possible laundering of campaign contributions.

The Oxnard City Council late Tuesday killed a proposal to bring big-time gambling to the city, but the county’s top prosecutor said he will continue his probe into the possible laundering of campaign contributions to the council.

“This was democracy in action. The citizens spoke up forcefully,” Mayor Manuel Lopez said after the council’s 5-0 vote ended an emotional four-hour hearing that drew about 300 people--the largest crowd in years--to City Hall.

As the card club campaign peaked over the last two weeks, about 2,000 casino opponents sent letters and petitions to the council. That outnumbered supporters’ correspondence 20 to 1, according to the city clerk.

But council members said Wednesday that the late-night vote may also have been influenced by Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury’s dramatic announcement during the hearing that he had launched a criminal investigation into money laundering.

Bradbury said his six-month investigation of card clubs and promoters of proposed Oxnard casinos uncovered evidence that the true identities of contributors to council candidates and other city office-seekers last fall had not been revealed.

“It’s hard to ignore that,” Councilman Andres Herrera said. “It concerned me that all of the sudden the investigation turns on the council. That was kind of heavy-handed. And I think it was intentional. . . . It can have a chilling effect. No doubt about that.”

Bradbury, who briefed all five council members on the crime-related perils of card clubs before the meeting, agreed that his efforts amounted to aggressive lobbying to kill the casino.

“He’s right,” Bradbury said. “We’ve never had a hidden agenda. Our goal was to keep a casino of that size out of this county, and I make no apologies for it.”

Although Bradbury’s report was vague about how much money may have been laundered into City Council campaigns, Herrera said the district attorney’s investigation apparently is focusing on contributions under $100 that do not have to be declared on public campaign reports.

Although private, candidate lists of small contributors have to be maintained so state officials and the district attorney can inspect them.

“The assumption on their part is that maybe somebody had given some money to a candidate and was subsequently reimbursed by somebody else,” Herrera said. “In this case it would seem to be obviously someone from card clubs (providing reimbursement).”

State law requires that contributors to political campaigns identify the true source of the money. In addition, no person can legally make a contribution on behalf of another unless the identity of both people is disclosed to the candidate.

Bradbury confirmed Wednesday that he recently asked all five City Council members for full contribution records for the November and March elections. He has also requested the records of former council members Dorothy Maron and Geraldine Furr and others, he said.

“We have asked for the names of contributors of amounts under $100,” he said.

Bradbury would not say which candidates may have received laundered contributions.

Herrera, Lopez, Maron and Councilman Thomas Holden said that they welcome the inquiry because they have nothing to hide. If such contributions exist, they said, the wrongdoing was by contributors and was unknown to them.

Lopez said Bradbury is apparently comparing the lists of small contributors to all council candidates, looking for people who gave to several.

“Then they look at whether that person works for one of the (card club promoters),” Lopez said. “They would see a pattern. That’s all part of the investigation.”

But under such a scenario, the law would be broken only if employees were reimbursed for their contributions.

Oxnard political consultant Donald Gunn, who Bradbury said directed about $7,000 in large contributions from one casino group to four council candidates, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Nor could Councilman Michael Plisky or Geraldine Furr, whose campaigns Gunn ran last fall.

But Plisky, who had tended to favor the casino if the city could ensure it would be run cleanly, said in an interview late Tuesday that he voted against a casino because of the public outcry and Bradbury’s warnings.

“The people said, ‘no,’ ” said Plisky, who was seen by many casino opponents as the key vote on the issue. “And I still have strong concerns about the criminal aspect of it. I’m not sure after listening to the district attorney . . . that we would have ever been able to bring it all under control.”

Plisky said he didn’t know what Bradbury meant when he said that Gunn directed large contributions to four incumbent council members--Plisky, Furr, Maron and Lopez--last fall.

“I don’t think he directs anybody,” said Plisky, whose council and mayoral campaigns Gunn has managed for a decade.

Plisky said that Bradbury’s report was incomplete because it did not note that Plisky returned a $1,000 contribution from a onetime casino promoter when the councilman discovered that the man had participated in a casino hidden-ownership scheme in the 1980s.

Plisky also criticized Bradbury’s report for repeating claims by a second set of casino promoters who said they negotiated with Gunn for consulting services last year at the suggestion of Plisky.

“That’s not accurate,” Plisky said. “They asked me for some help--if I knew somebody locally who knew the neighborhood.” Plisky said he recommended Gunn because “he was somebody who fit their qualifications.”

The Bradbury report was one aspect of an extraordinary hearing that led to the council’s rejection of a card club--a move some opponents said took them by surprise.

Maron said she’d never seen a district attorney at a city hearing in her 23 years as a public official. Lopez said the crowd was the largest he’d seen in 25 years with the city. People lined the walls of the council chamber, jammed a nearby hall and foyer, and wound out of City Hall into the evening air.

At issue was whether Oxnard should welcome a 50,000-square-foot casino that promoters said would lure 1,000 customers a day, produce at least 300 jobs and provide $500,000 to $1.2 million in gambling taxes annually for the city.

Speakers were split on whether the jobs and taxes a casino would bring to town would be worth the damage a card club might do to local families, city government and Oxnard’s reputation.

After more than four hours, tensions mounted as council members stated their positions one by one. It was not clear until the final member weighed in, to an outburst of applause, that the card club was dead.

First Lopez restated his longstanding objections to a casino, basing his decision on concerns about the corrupting influences of a club.

Then Plisky said, “We sorely need jobs in this city and additional revenue . . . (but) I simply can’t find it in my heart to support any further activity with a card club.”

Herrera said he wanted to keep the proposal alive and go forward with consideration of detailed casino proposals. “I’m still not convinced that we have the necessary information so we can make an intelligent well-founded decision,” Herrera said, his voice rising. “To that extent I think we’ve been shortsighted.”

Comments by Councilman Bedford Pinkard were not clearly for or against a card club. He said he had not heard any new ideas about how to satisfy the city’s budget shortfall if a card club was rejected.

Then came Holden.

“I still feel it’s a good project, but I’m not willing to have our community split,” he finally said. “So I’m not willing to go on with this project.”

After Holden’s comments, the council voted unanimously against the club. Holden said Wednesday that he had not been sure how he would vote even as he spoke.

“It was tough,” he said. “I probably wasn’t even decided when I was talking. . . . But I decided that you can bring in jobs either way, but once you bring in the negative aspect of a card club they’re here (permanently).”