WESTMINSTER : D.A. Backs 4 Who Face Recall Election

Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi has thrown his support behind Mayor Charles V. Smith and three council members facing a recall election Tuesday, arguing that they have been strong supporters of public safety measures.

At the same time, Capizzi has castigated city firefighters, who are behind the recall effort, for engaging in payroll practices that he described as neither in the best interest of the city nor morally defensible.

The alleged payroll abuses were investigated by Capizzi’s office, but prosecutors announced last month that they have found insufficient evidence to prove criminal wrongdoing by the firefighters.

“This does not mean the practices which the mayor and the council put an end to were in the best interests of the city or morally defensible. They were neither,” Capizzi wrote in a letter to Westminster residents mailed last week.

The Lincoln Club of Orange County, a conservative Republican group, paid the cost of mailing about 20,000 copies of Capizzi’s letter to city voters.

Recall backers said the letter was “clearly political, bought and paid for by political allies of the council.”

“The D.A. has a long relationship with the council members,” said Phil Giarrizzo, a consultant for the recall proponents. “He has a vested interest in their continued employment as council members.”

Giarrizzo said the council members have used Capizzi as a “shield” in their continued attacks against the firefighters.

But Capizzi said Thursday that the Westminster Firefighters Assn. “applauded us when we concluded the investigation.” Now, it’s trying to discredit him, he said.

“It’s an old trick,” Capizzi said. “When anyone doesn’t like the message, they try to kill the messenger.”

An independent study by the accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick showed that firefighters failed to provide required paperwork for more than 9,500 hours of paid sick time, vacation and other time off work during last seven years.

The auditors estimated possible costs to the city of the undocumented time off at $800,000.

Six Fire Department employees have been terminated and one suspended for alleged payroll abuses.

But the terminated firefighters have argued that they did nothing wrong, and that the problems were caused in part by faulty record-keeping.

A U.S. District court recently ruled that the city must submit to arbitration to resolve the dismissed firefighters’ bids to win their jobs back. A date has not yet been set for the arbitration hearings.

Councilman Craig Schweisinger, a recall target, said that Capizzi’s letter strengthens the city’s continuing disciplinary actions against the firefighters.

“The Capizzi letter confirms and concurs that what they have done was not right,” Schweisinger said.

Also targeted in the city’s first recall vote ever are council members Charmayne S. Bohman and Tony Lam.