San Fernando Fires Embattled Parks Director

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 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 after a 3 1/2-hour closed session during which the council reviewed allegations that Margarito falsified time cards for convicts sentenced to work in the city’s parks.

The 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 allegedly 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 Margarito’s bank records indicates investigators are widening their probe. According to the affidavit, investigators are looking into $4,000 Margarito allegedly received in 1987 from the nonprofit Immigration Services of Santa Rosa in San Fernando while serving on its board, a violation of its bylaws.

Margarito said the check, dated Feb. 26, 1987, was for consulting services he performed before becoming a board member.

The affidavit lists Feb. 2, 1987, as the date of incorporation for the group and its board.

Council members remained mum about their deliberations Tuesday, not saying who voted against the firing.

Council members said the city attorney advised them not to reveal any details, in part because Margarito has a fair-employment complaint pending against the city.

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

In both personal and political circles, those who witnessed Margarito’s rise from census worker and Latino activist to councilman and mayor expressed shock.

“I’ve known Jess for many years,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who said he first met Margarito as a high school student at a youth leadership program at San Fernando Recreation Park.

“I hope everything proves to be a big mistake. It’s a very unfortunate thing for everyone involved. I think we have to let the process work. I wish both the city of San Fernando and Jess Margarito well.”

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 charges 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, and never deserved to be fired.

Tearful senior citizens, workers and friends agreed, embracing Margarito as he left the office Tuesday.

Margarito, who has been involved with the city’s parks since 1968, openly sobbed as he embraced Viola Lott, a parks worker for the past 30 years.

“This woman taught me to square-dance when I was 13,” he said, his voice fading to a sob.

“I don’t know what the problems are, but I know they’re not on your part,” Lott told Margarito as he turned to wipe away tears.

Outside, loyal parks workers also said goodby.

“He gave us everything we needed. To me, he was a dad,” said maintenance worker Larry Juarez, whose voice cracked with emotion. “He’s for the people--can’t anyone understand that?”

At Las Palmas Park, Margarito spoke in Spanish to a group of elderly residents who take part in a nutrition program started under his tenure. “In my heart, I know you are with me,” he said. “This is a step back, but the struggle goes forward.”

Program participants then lined up to shake his hand and wish him well.

Margarito’s activist supporters expressed outrage and shock Tuesday.

Some said Margarito was the victim of ulterior political motives with racial overtones.

Margarito, they said, always represented a disenfranchised Latino fringe that has struggled to obtain power in this small city of 23,500 in the northeastern San Fernando Valley.

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

“I think what was needed by those that are against him was an excuse to get rid of him,” said Torres, who ran for several state offices during the 1970s under the La Raza Unida party branch that Margarito helped found in 1970. “I’m suspicious,” he said.

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

Ruben Rodriguez, a director of the Pueblo y Salud human-services group in San Fernando, said he regards some of the Latino council members as still tied to the previous white power structure, and said most of the top city administrative workers are still white.

“You’ll find most of the slate of administrators are not Latino,” he said. “There’s a concern that if people like Jess are allowed to stay in there, it will jeopardize their little fiefdom.”

City officials refused to comment on any aspect of the case or counter-allegations Tuesday.

But on Monday night, they shrugged off such comments.

Margarito acknowledged he made many enemies in his path to power from San Fernando’s poorest neighborhood.

Besides helping found La Raza Unida, a radical Chicano party, he sued the city of San Fernando in 1974 over its at-large districts, a voting-rights complaint that eventually was rejected by the United States Supreme Court in 1980.

Margarito was trounced in a bid for City Council in 1972, a campaign that he acknowledges scared voters with its radical tone.

He followed up with the lawsuit, while struggling to help get La Raza Unida candidates elected statewide.

In 1986, after two years on the council, he helped elect a slate of reform candidates to create the first Latino majority on the panel--to the annoyance of candidates who were not reelected.

That same year, the new council selected him as mayor.

Even his appointment to the parks post in 1990 created controversy, after the council selected him over another candidate with a higher rating.

Times staff writer Julie Tamaki contributed to this story.