A Wealth of Woes : Federal Bribery Inquiry Is Latest in a Long List of Setbacks as Compton Struggles to Get Back on its Feet

It has been a city beset for decades, its problems a familiar litany: Blight. Crime. Every fourth person in poverty. Schools so mismanaged they were taken over by the state.

So it was with a certain weariness that the city of Compton greeted its latest spate of bad news: A sweeping federal probe had developed allegations that local politicians accepted bribes, that the target of that investigation was Compton City Hall, that an undercover agent posing as a businessman had offered two of the city’s political stars bribes to have items placed on council agendas.

Among the named targets were Rep. Walter R. Tucker III, a former mayor and a scion of one of Compton’s oldest, wealthiest and most politically entrenched families, and former Councilwoman Patricia A. Moore, one of Compton’s most visible activists. Sources close to the probe said other city officials were being investigated as well.

Compton has become well acquainted with poverty and the temptations that go with it. The city was once a bustling, ethnically mixed community of frame houses and tidy storefronts. In the 1950s it became one of many Southland areas in which housing integration prompted white flight. In the 1960s the Watts riots and other social upheavals prompted business owners--most of them white--to flee the city. With the businesses went the jobs. With joblessness came crime. And as crime and gang violence took a progressively bigger toll during the past decade, some of the city’s black middle class began to move out, replaced by Latino immigrants.

Today Compton is a city of 91,400 residents, 27% of whom live below the poverty line--nearly twice as high as the proportion of poor people in Los Angeles County. Fewer than 3.5% of its households have an income of more than $50,000 a year.

It is a place where cynicism about the motivations of public officials has risen as various attempts by City Hall to bootstrap the community back into the middle class have faltered.

There was the storied auto mall, the strip of shiny dealerships that was going to save downtown. Then the Compton Ramada was going to be the city’s salvation, a luxury hotel for meetings and weddings and fancy Sunday brunch. Then there was the wealth that the Blue Line was expected to trundle into town, to a transit center and shopping mall.

Every deal raised Compton’s civic hopes only to dash them with bad timing or bad management or bad luck.

The 66-acre auto mall, for example, ended up being built with a 10-foot brick wall around it, hiding the rows of shining cars from potential customers. Two of three dealerships defaulted on millions of dollars in city loans in 1989 and closed their doors. Only one dealer remains on the lonely street.

The Compton Ramada--the city’s first grand hotel--had to be seized by the city last year. After paying the developer about $30 million to build the attached parking structure and convention center, the city loaned him the $6.7 million he needed to complete the project. But the developer, Naftali Deutsch, never made a single payment on the loan, and now the hotel is in the city’s lap.

The contractor who promised to deliver the vaunted $4.1-million multipurpose transit center was declared in default for failing to complete the project in 1989. The city finished the project, but the inner mall Compton had hoped to see crammed with Blue Line commuters on shopping sprees is so far a vista of mostly empty storefronts.

With failure has come finger-pointing. Each fizzled venture has brought with it new rumors of corruption at City Hall. But much is said and little is proved.

Maxcy Filer, a 41-year resident of the city and a former councilman, said that when the auto mall was pushing for more dealerships and the Compton Ramada was in the planning stages in the early and mid-1980s, it seemed that council members were constantly being feted at banquets attended by city contractors who stood to gain from those projects and who would spend thousands of dollars on tickets.

The proceeds “were supposed to go for their reelection campaigns,” said Filer, a councilman from 1976 to 1991. “But who knows if they actually were? We could have filled that (auto) plaza but six or seven dealerships were turned away because, as far as I could see, they didn’t buy tickets” to the politicians’ testimonial banquets.

The charges and countercharges have created a political climate notable for its bitterness.

Take the scandal of 1985, in which Councilman Floyd A. James, then battling Patricia Moore to hold on to his council seat, was accused of illegally trading votes for record albums featuring the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s fiery “Our Time Has Come” speech.

James, who won that election, ended up pleading no contest to a far less serious charge of sending out an illegal mailer. He served three years probation and two weeks picking up freeway trash--but not before someone called the local police to claim that the key witness against him was growing marijuana in her back yard.

Then there were the 1987 Tucker scandals, involving a family so locally connected that they have been called the “Kennedys of Compton.” That was the year that Mayor Walter R. Tucker, who is now dead, saw both his wife and son accused of wrongdoing.

First, his son, Walter Tucker III--at the time a county prosecutor--was charged with tampering with the date on photographs he was using as evidence in a narcotics case in an attempt to cover up the fact that he had withheld the evidence from the defense.

Then his wife, Martha Tucker, was accused of swindling nearly $300,000 from eight clients who were involved with her in real estate purchases. The mayor’s wife--who has since said that she was “left holding the bag” in a legitimate real estate deal--ultimately pleaded no contest to three counts of grand theft and was ordered to pay a fine.

His son, meanwhile, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of preparing false evidence. He spent three years on probation, paid a $100 fine and was fired from the district attorney’s office.

But Walter Tucker III’s political career flourished as he followed in his father’s civic footsteps.

In April, 1991, after a bruising election, he became the youngest mayor in Compton history. Then, in November, 1992, he was elected to Congress from the 37th District. At the time, his critics used words like “charmed life” to describe the career of the lawyer and Baptist minister.

“People don’t see how he won (the congressional seat), but it is not for us to understand,” said Councilwoman Bernice Woods, a typical Tucker foe. “Right or wrong, where God puts a period, I don’t put a question mark. All I know is that the devil does reign sometimes.”

Tucker, in a 1992 interview with The Times, said: “The self-confidence I have comes from the fact that I have made mistakes and that God has allowed me to rebound from those mistakes.”

“Experience,” he added, “has taught me that you cannot do things at the expense of the rules.”

There have been other intrigues in recent years involving Compton city government: Charges of nepotism and cronyism in the hiring and promotion of city workers. Charges--denied--that the late mayor Tucker had used a campaign fund-raiser to pay off his wife’s legal expenses. Low-interest city loans to an auto dealership that had contributed heavily to the council majority. Lax policies in collecting debts owed to the city by businesses that had contributed heavily to council political campaigns.

There have also been concerns over legalized gambling at the city’s bingo parlor and planned card casino. Last year, for example, council members took the unusual step of creating a city gaming commission, then appointed themselves commissioners and gave themselves a raise, at a cost of $55,000 a year to taxpayers. Outrage over the action forced the council to quickly rescind the raise.

Adding to the fomentation are the clannish city’s many political feuds.

When Moore finally succeeded in unseating James in 1989, for instance--four years after the votes-for-Jesse-Jackson-albums imbroglio--her victory comments were characteristically personal: “The people of Compton have had enough of Floyd James,” she said.

James, meanwhile, blamed his loss on a feud with another member of the council, a man whose son had been ousted as the city’s redevelopment director.

“I didn’t support his son when the city manager fired him, so they mounted a force against me,” James said.

Moore and Tucker were allies when they served together on the City Council. But when Moore ran for mayor last year--a race she ultimately lost--their allegiance was frayed because Tucker withdrew his support for Moore’s campaign and endorsed his younger brother instead.

It is because of these factors--the city’s past brushes with scandal, the colorful personalities of the players, Compton’s tradition of down-and-dirty campaigns--that some local politicians have speculated that the federal probe, which sources familiar with the investigation say was launched more than two years, was spawned by political infighting.

Moore and Tucker are gearing up for election battles this year--she for a state Assembly seat and he for reelection to Congress.

“I really believe this is the work of political enemies,” said Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneaux, a longtime Tucker supporter, who noted that this is an election year.

Life went on in Compton on Friday. The Walter R. Tucker Foundation, an organization named after the congressman’s father that works with poor children, kicked off a “steps against violence” conference. And at the Compton Ramada, an annual women’s conference sponsored by the county Human Relations Commission probed issues such as workplace violence and conflict negotiation. But these things were lost in the swirl of events, dominated by controversy, the same way the city’s low-slung landscape is dominated by the towering Compton criminal courts complex.

“The people are getting tired of it,” ex-Councilman Filer said. “It hurts the average citizen to read about this. Too many good people have moved out.”

“Every city has problems,” said Councilman Ronald Green, who was appointed to the council nine months ago. “But other cities don’t have the image Compton has because they’re not portrayed the way Compton is.”

Green complained about the recording artists who sing about Compton as if it were the cradle of gangsta rap, and the television cameras that seem to see only the graffiti and vacant lots. Where were the cameras, Green wondered, when a group of men banded together last autumn to clean up Compton Creek?

“When Compton was ranked No. 20 out of 778 cities in the nation as a place where business could come and prosper in, nobody came to me for a comment,” he said. “There are small things that go on continuously, that most people don’t hear about.”

Filer disagreed with the notion that Compton’s negative image, rather than actual misconduct, may have lured federal investigators.

“You won’t get bad press if you aren’t doing these things,” he said.