San Fernando Parks Chief Fired : Inquiry: Allegations that he misused city funds prompt council to oust grass-roots Latino leader. He denies wrongdoing.

After months of speculation and rumor, the San Fernando City Council has fired parks director Jess Margarito, a popular figure in grass-roots Latino politics and a former mayor who is the subject of a criminal investigation for alleged misuse of his office.

Haggard-looking council members announced their 4-1 decision at 11:30 p.m. Monday night, after a 3 1/2-hour closed session in which the council reviewed allegations that Margarito falsified time cards for convicts sentenced by courts to work in the city’s parks. A nine-count confidential report by the San Fernando Police Department also alleges that Margarito caused the city to pay false invoices amounting to more than $2,000 for tasks that were not done.

Those allegations remain the focus of a separate criminal investigation by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Investigators last week seized Margarito’s work computer and some documents, as well as personal bank records.

An affidavit submitted to a court in the request for the warrant to seize bank records indicates that investigators are looking into $4,000 Margarito allegedly received in 1987 from the nonprofit Immigration Services of Santa Rosa while serving on its board, a violation of its bylaws.

Council members remained mum about their deliberations Tuesday, not even saying who voted against the firing. Council members said the city attorney advised them not to reveal details, in part because Margarito has a fair-employment complaint pending against the city.

The complaint, filed in September, accuses officials of racial discrimination and harassment in their inquiry into his three-year tenure as director of the Recreation and Community Services Department.

Margarito received a final paycheck Tuesday morning, then tearfully emptied his desk at San Fernando Recreation Park under escort by a police officer. He vowed to fight the council, possibly through a lawsuit, saying it never gave him a chance to answer the allegations before firing him.

“I made some mistakes, but I never benefited one cent” Margarito said. “In hindsight I wish I was wiser. In hindsight, I wish I was more responsive to the administrative process.”

Throughout the months of investigation, beginning with the district attorney’s inquiry in April and concluding with the city’s action Monday night, Margarito has maintained that he may have bent rules to help destitute friends and workers, but never profited.

Margarito’s activist supporters were outraged Tuesday. Margarito, they said, always represented a disenfranchised Latino fringe that has struggled to obtain power in the small city of 23,500 in the northeastern San Fernando Valley. Some said Margarito was the victim of political motives with racial overtones.

“I don’t doubt that there is a good degree of that,” said Andres Torres, a Mission College professor and longtime Margarito friend.

Four of the five members of the council that fired him, however, are Latinos, as is 83% of the city’s population.