San Fernando Council Weighs Margarito Case

The San Fernando City Council on Monday night considered in secret what steps to take in the case of parks director Jess Margarito, a popular former mayor who is accused of falsifying official documents and misappropriating more than $2,000 in city funds.

The move came just hours after Margarito--also the target of a separate criminal investigation by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office--lambasted the council for engaging in what he called a political vendetta against him.

The council, meeting in a confidential executive session Monday night, heard a report by San Fernando Police Lt. Ernie Halcon, according to Halcon and members of the council. The meeting continued late into the night.

Just last week, Halcon and an investigator from the district attorney’s office seized a computer and records from the office of Margarito, whose title is director of recreation and community services.

Margarito has been the subject of a criminal investigation by the district attorney’s office since last April, and has been under scrutiny by the council since October. The council inquiry has been limited to administrative matters, although Halcon has said he found evidence of criminal wrongdoing as well.

The investigations are based on allegations that Margarito falsified work cards for convicts assigned by courts to work in the city’s parks, and submitted bogus work orders that resulted in the payment of $2,250 for tasks that were not done.

The City Council directed the city’s Police Department to look into the charges in October.

Earlier Monday, Margarito told a gathering in front of the San Fernando police station that the investigations are politically motivated.

“What they’re doing to us is unjust,” he said. “We’re not going to be intimidated or cowed down by people who don’t want change to take place.”

The small rally attracted about 35 residents, many of whom have known Margarito since he began his rise from U.S. Census Bureau worker to councilman in 1984 and mayor in 1986.

Margarito did not contradict specific allegations outlined last week in a search warrant affidavit, but said the investigations are an excessive reaction to what he believes are merely record-keeping irregularities.

He promised to produce evidence in the coming weeks and called for a public City Council meeting to air the allegations. The council has met several times in closed session to discuss the case on the grounds that it is a personnel matter.

“I believe there’s been a real aggressive investigation beyond the content of the charges against me,” he told The Times.

City officials had little comment.

“I’m not surprised that he would say that,” said City Administrator Mary Strenn. “I can’t comment on it because it’s a personnel matter,” she added.

Margarito was joined by his attorney, Arthur Goldberg, who has worked on numerous Latino issues, and longtime community activists Ruben Rodriguez and Xavier Flores, directors of Pueblo y Salud, a human-services group in San Fernando.

Flores has characterized the investigation as a last-ditch effort by the city’s old white power structure to oust potentially troublesome Latino politicians.

However, four of the five council members, including the mayor, are Latino, as are about 83% of the 23,500 residents of this northeast San Fernando Valley city.

“I feel that it has extremely racial undertones to it,” Flores said earlier Monday. “The old power structure would be very, very happy to continue with their quasi-apartheid system that has existed in the city of San Fernando for a long time, where the few dictate to the majority about where, how and when things are going to happen.”

Goldberg said the investigations probably are spurred more by personal political grudges than any anti-Latino power struggles.

“Honestly, I think the bottom line is that he’s a political activist,” said Goldberg. “He doesn’t always do things by the book, he’s revitalized the city parks department, and all those things make him dangerous politically.”

Goldberg said that Margarito “probably was involved in signing off improperly” some of the convicts’ time cards, but never acted for personal financial gain.

“There’s no evidence of kickbacks,” Goldberg said. “That to me is an entirely different moral issue. This has all the appearances of a political struggle.”