Farm Workers’ Housing Dream Imperiled : Oxnard: Bitter negotiations pit developer against councilman. Project would have replaced rundown trailer park, but city’s poorest might not have income to qualify.

What began two years ago as a city effort to move farm workers out of an Oxnard slum has turned into a long and bitter negotiating battle marked by disputed claims of improper behavior by officials, sweetheart deals and betrayal.

In the process, the new housing project once envisioned for the farm workers now seems doomed. Instead, the city is moving toward a more upscale version of low-income housing that the city’s poorest residents simply can’t afford.

And some of the city officials most closely involved in the complex process are now bickering openly--questioning why it took so long to complete what might have been a straight-forward land deal.

After a state inspection of the Oxnard Mobilehome Lodge found hundreds of health and safety violations in 1991, city officials pledged to relocate 1,100 poor residents packed eight per trailer beneath worn electrical lines in one of Ventura County’s densest, most hazardous enclaves.

But over the past two years, the trailer park relocation has twice lurched forward and stalled--first from homeowner opposition and then from protracted negotiations marred by back-room City Council disputes and a landowner’s accusation that one councilman made inappropriate requests of him.

Officials say they believe they have finally struck a deal with Donald T. Kojima--a financially troubled real estate speculator friendly with public officials--to buy 20 acres of farmland near St. John’s hospital for housing and a 14-acre park and school site for $4.78 million.

But it is a deal that council members Andres Herrera and Tom Holden say should have closed months ago had city negotiators not lost their way. And if Councilman Michael Plisky had not engaged in what was essentially a back-room filibuster to stop it, Herrera said.

“Government should not work this way,” Herrera said last week. “This should have been a very simple business deal.”

Instead, it languished as Plisky publicly declared in February that the pending purchase of Kojima’s parkland was the worst city deal he had ever seen. In private council sessions he argued that the city should let Kojima declare bankruptcy, then buy the park and housing parcels more cheaply.

“There was an unrelenting antagonism by Plisky on the Kojima project . . . that was just too personal,” Herrera said. “We were really getting into it in the back room. The discussions were heated.”

Kojima now contends that Plisky made inappropriate, unreasonable requests related to his land in 1992, then engaged in a personal vendetta to try to kill the sales when the landowner refused to cooperate. “I was shocked” by the requests, Kojima said in an interview.

Others confirm that Plisky--following a controversial practice he has employed with other developers--upset Kojima by referring him to political consultant and lobbyist Donald A. Gunn after Kojima sought Plisky’s help in land-use matters.

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While Kojima refuses to discuss any meeting with Gunn, one source said Gunn reportedly asked for a $35,000 consultant’s fee to handle the project. Kojima would only say: “I don’t want to get into Gunn or any of that stuff. My situation is real delicate.” Gunn declined comment when asked if he had negotiated a fee with Kojima.

Plisky acknowledges referring Kojima to Gunn--who had been Plisky’s campaign manager for a decade--after Kojima came to him and “said he needed help with the planning process.”

“I did not make any improper requests,” Plisky said. “I don’t think he encountered anything inappropriate from me.”

Plisky said he only opposed purchase of Kojima’s parkland because the city had agreed to advance nearly half of the $780,000 price to pay off the landowner’s bad debts and stop foreclosure proceedings.

Kojima could have declared bankruptcy and left the city standing in line for repayment, Plisky said. Other city officials said Kojima’s equity in the land covered any potential loss.

“I never had anything against Kojima, and I still don’t,” Plisky said. “I just didn’t like the (parkland) deal, and I still don’t. Even Herrera is smart enough to understand that.”

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Plisky noted that earlier this year he voted for a change in the city’s northeast area plan that allows houses on Kojima’s land and made it more valuable. And--after a meeting with Kojima last weekend--the councilman said he now supports city purchase of both Kojima parcels.

Gunn said Friday it would be unethical for him to talk about discussions with any potential client. But, responding to Kojima’s accusations of unreasonable requests, he added: “If Kojima is making this type of statement, I personally just think it shows that desperate people say and do desperate things.”

As tensions on the Kojima deal have played out behind the scenes, allegations that the City Council was bailing Kojima out of a bad land investment were circulated by several opponents, beginning last summer.

And after Kojima hosted Holden’s 40th birthday party at the exclusive Tower Club atop an Oxnard bank building in late March, Holden’s relationship with the businessman became an issue, since the council had only recently approved $360,000 in advance payments to Kojima and since two of his land deals were still pending.

Holden said he sees no conflict of interest.

Kojima is a friend with whom he sometimes has dinner, Holden said. But Kojima hosted the councilman’s birthday party only in the sense that his membership gained the party’s access to the club, the councilman said. Holden’s family paid for the surprise celebration, he added.

“I think it’s about time we had people (on the council) who keep their relationships out in the public rather than in the back room,” Holden said. “To separate social from political, that’s not a problem for me. I have personal relationships with many people in this city. I don’t use my position to close down my relationships.”

Meanwhile, the city’s efforts to move farm workers out of their tiny, tattered trailers--away from 50-year-old electrical lines and water pipes that often rupture--had been further slowed by maneuvering from Kojima and two low-cost housing firms to grab a share of the lucrative, 115-home construction contract for the Kojima parcel, city officials said.

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And as talks dragged on, city officials said it became clear that the mobile home lodge would not close as they had hoped and that the low-income housing they want to build is too costly for most trailer park residents to afford, even with steep government subsidies.

Officials say the $90,000 to $100,000 residences they will probably construct represent the first time the city has built truly affordable housing for low-income residents to buy, though the poorest still might not have the income to qualify.

To Luis Teran, who first petitioned the City Council to improve conditions at his shabby trailer park 12 years ago, such news shatters a dream.

“I am an American,” said the 61-year-old retired celery picker and head of the trailer park’s residents council. “I want to be able to own my own home. That’s my dream.”

Attorney Eileen McCarthy of California Rural Legal Assistance in Oxnard said the city’s new position represents a breach of trust by officials who have promised much but delivered nothing.

“This is beyond betrayal,” McCarthy said. “They just don’t want to put that much money into housing for farm workers.”

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Don Kojima, 43, soft-spoken and engaging in preppy dress, is a USC mathematics graduate who began investing in Oxnard apartment houses through numerous limited partnerships 15 years ago.

Nearly from the start, Kojima--who has homes in Manhattan Beach and on the River Ridge golf course in north Oxnard--has made it his business to know city officials well.

“He has a way of insinuating himself into your life,” one associate said.

Kojima is friends not only with Holden and Herrera, but with former Councilwoman Dorothy Maron and Assemblyman Nao Takasugi, the former Oxnard mayor. And he says he is friendly with every current council member except Plisky.

He has contributed small amounts to numerous City Council campaigns and to Takasugi’s legislative campaign. He says he has asked friends to make contributions as well.

“I would say I make it a practice . . . to be on a friendly basis,” he said. And sometimes he has called on his council friends for help.

Kojima telephoned then-Mayor Takasugi at 2 a.m. for help to get out of the Oxnard jail after Kojima’s arrest on a drunk-driving charge in 1988. He pleaded no contest to the charge the next year.

“I don’t know if he had anyone else to turn too,” said Takasugi, whose niece-in-law is Kojima’s second cousin. “I was able to get him out on my own recognizance. I vouched for him and said I was going to take him home and get him to bed.”

Herrera and Holden, the two newest council members, said Kojima befriended them almost immediately upon election.

“Before I came on council, I had Don in my office saying, ‘Look, I’ve been to the council with this project for four years and nothing has happened,’ ” Holden said. Herrera got a similar call. Both said the developer was easy to like. When Kojima called on business he would always apologize for interrupting Herrera and politely thank the councilman for his time.

Both councilmen said they agreed that Kojima’s projects--and others in the city’s northeast area--had been held up by city planning inefficiencies, and they have worked to end delays.

“He’s got a charm about him,” Herrera said. “I find him pleasant to be around. And even when we do talk business, it’s without a lot of pressure. His demeanor doesn’t change.

“Right now,” Herrera added: “I have not found out anything that would not allow me to respect the guy. And that determines my level of friendships.”

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Kojima has not always gotten along so well with city officials.

In 1984, code enforcement officers cited him for slum conditions--including rodent infestation--at a two-story apartment house in one of Oxnard’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods.

Finally, in a rare move for the district attorney’s office, county prosecutors filed a civil complaint against Kojima, which ended in a $4,000 fine in 1986.

Kojima said he waited to repair the apartments--several of which were vacant and broken into regularly by prostitutes and drug dealers--because he was negotiating with city housing officials for a federal grant to rehabilitate the complex.

But when that deal fell through for a third time, Kojima said he threatened to sue city housing authorities. Consequently, he said, he ended up being charged as a slumlord.

“I felt that was really unfair,” Kojima said. “I would hope that wouldn’t be held against me.”

Between 1981 and 1990, Kojima was cited for code violations 11 additional times at the 89 apartments he still owned, according to inspection records. But he said he has always made repairs promptly. And he has not been cited since 1990.

Kojima has been involved in Oxnard politics at least since 1986, when he supported Takasugi for mayor instead of Plisky.

He said he has made it a particular point to get to know council members since he had spent more than $11 million on three northeast Oxnard parcels from 1988 to 1990, just as the local real estate market began to collapse.

He has not been able to sell or build on any of the properties, not only because of a bad economy but also because of city delays in approving a plan for a new community in the city’s northeast.

According to Kojima, city officials estimated in 1988 that the new northeast plan would be in place by 1990. But it was not approved until this February, four years later.

“Mr. Takasugi is the one who convinced us before we bought the first 47 acres,” Kojima said. “Mr. Takasugi felt it was a very good location. He was very supportive of this property. He told me it would be next to the new hospital.”

By the spring of 1992, as annual carrying charges of about $500,000 ate away potential profits, Kojima said he grew increasingly anxious about his holdings and feared eventual ruin if he could not sell some of the undeveloped land.

At about that point, he said, he went to Plisky.

“I just think some unreasonable requests were made of me (by Plisky) . . . in regards to our land,” Kojima said, refusing elaboration. “My dealings with everybody else have always been above board. I’ve never encountered anything inappropriate from any of the other council members.”

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Plisky, 52, a three-time mayoral candidate and former chamber of commerce president known for his outspokenness since joining the council in 1984, said he recalls the conversation with Kojima.

“He needed help with the planning process, and he asked me who would I recommend. And I believe I told him Don Gunn,” Plisky said. “That was the end of it.”

Plisky said he worked on Kojima’s behalf himself, pushing staff planners to move along the city’s new northeast development plan, which would change the use on two Kojima parcels to residential and enhance their value.

“I worked real hard to get this thing moving again,” Plisky said. “I did what I could do for him.”

Then, in late 1992, when mounting debts persuaded Kojima that he should not fight a city effort to relocate the trailer park residents to his site, Plisky said he went along with the idea.

“He came back and said, ‘I’d like you to support mobile homes on this site,’ and I said ‘fine,’ ” Plisky said.

Plisky said he referred Kojima to Gunn for help at about the same time as he suggested that promoters seeking to build a large card club in Oxnard talk with the lobbyist about how to best work with city officials.

It was that card-club referral--and Gunn’s prominent behind the scenes role in that high-profile issue--that prompted Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury to note the relationship between Plisky and Gunn in a scathing 1993 analysis of card clubs and their corrupting influence on local politics.

Although alleging no crimes, Bradbury raised questions on the propriety of Gunn’s dual role as campaign manager for council members and lobbyist for companies seeking the votes of those members.

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He cited evidence that Gunn--while managing the fall campaign of council members Plisky and Geraldine Furr--had directed about $7,000 in contributions from promoters into several city campaigns.

Gunn signed no contract with the first group of promoters, but after the November, 1992, election, he did sign an agreement with a second card-club group. It gave him not only a paycheck but a six-figure bonus if a casino was built and a lifetime 2% interest in casino revenues, Bradbury reported.

Plisky, who first met Gunn at chamber of commerce meetings in the mid-1970s, said in interviews last year that he sometimes referred out-of-town developers to Gunn.

“I have a couple of times,” Plisky said. “That’s my middle name. I believe in referring to people in Oxnard any business that I can. . . . So if anybody asks me who knows the lay of the land relative to a planning issue or political issue then I might tell them, ‘See Don Gunn.’ ”

Kojima said he believes that the fall, 1992, campaign also helped set Plisky, then a mayoral candidate, against him.

“Mr. Plisky’s problem with me is personal, and not with my project,” Kojima said. “I think it starts with that we felt Mr. Takasugi was the appropriate choice for mayor and we felt that Dr. Lopez was the better person for mayor in the last election.”

Early this year, as the City Council contemplated purchase of Kojima’s land for low-cost housing, council members Holden and Herrera said they could see that the issue was especially important to Plisky.

While condemning the pending parkland purchase in public, Plisky chastised it in private, saying Kojima was a “big boy” who speculated in real estate and lost.

“I could see there was something personal between the two,” Holden said. “The frustrating thing was that the issues he raised would be addressed and he still could never support the project. . . . I couldn’t in my mind justify his position.”

Holden said Kojima eventually told him about Plisky’s referral to Gunn. And Herrera said he concluded separately that Plisky and Kojima had a personal problem. Both now say they believe that Plisky’s referrals to consultant Gunn are improper.

Plisky said assertions that he delayed the Kojima deals are illogical, since the council favored them 4 to 1 all along. “All he needed was three votes.”

Holden and Herrera said appraisals showed that Kojima’s land was worth what he was asking, about $140,000 an acre, and that it was not the council’s job to low-ball offers because Kojima was facing foreclosure. Kojima was, in fact, hundreds of thousands of dollars behind on payments and more than $200,000 behind on property taxes.

“The point is, what is the land worth,” Holden said.

Holden said it made sense for the council to advance Kojima $260,000 to ward off one foreclosure in February, $100,000 to pay more debts in March and under a new agreement to be considered Tuesday, another $150,000 to stop a second foreclosure.

If Kojima had declared bankruptcy, “the worst thing that could happen is that we get his property” because its value exceeds what Kojima owes on it, Holden said.

Plisky now concedes that the city was only technically at risk when it made advance payments to Kojima, because it could have recouped the money. But that would have taken a long time, he said.

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Although maintaining that Kojima is lucky to have any buyer in such a bad market, Plisky said he now fully backs the Kojima purchases because of recent changes in the deals. But he said he could not discuss those changes because the new conditions were not yet public.

Holden said the new deal is essentially the same as has long been discussed.

Under the proposal to be considered Tuesday, Kojima will get $4 million beyond the $780,000 the city had already agreed to pay for a seven-acre park.

The $130,000-an-acre price is lower than the selling price two school districts have paid or are now offering for land nearby, those districts confirmed. And the Rio School District has agreed to reimburse the city $910,000, or $130,000 an acre, for the Kojima school site, city officials said.

“I think probably one position can be that the city is bailing me out,” Kojima said last week. “My position is that I would not need to be bailed out if the city would deal in a fair and timely manner.”

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It has been 12 years since Consuelo Teran, then a timid 9-year-old, first spoke her father’s words to the Oxnard City Council, pleading from behind a tall podium for improvements at the shabby trailer park where they lived.

Two months ago, Teran again approached the council on behalf of her Spanish-speaking father, Luis, who wanted to know what had become of city promises to relocate farm workers at the mobile home lodge.

“We were trying to put pressure on them,” said Consuelo Teran, now a 21-year-old who lives with her own small son and husband in a tattered trailer next to her father’s. “But they don’t answer. They just listen.”

City officials have discussed possible closure of the Terans’ trailer park ever since a fire charred three trailers and left two dozen people homeless in 1985. An inspection in 1991 found 1,197 health and safety violations.

A follow-up inspection found that about 600 remained. And beginning in 1992, the city actively began to try to find a better place for the trailer dwellers to live.

A possible relocation to a field near the south Oxnard neighborhood of Tierra Vista was abandoned when neighbors protested. The council then formed a special committee to find the best remaining relocation site.

By February, 1993, the committee had selected two suitable parcels, one owned by Kojima and another nearby in Oxnard’s undeveloped northeast.

The second landowner objected, but Kojima did not. So at City Council direction, housing officials ordered engineering studies on how to best fit up to 160 trailers onto a 28-acre Kojima parcel. Kojima had submitted an appraisal by last July.

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And by October, after a second Kojima appraisal and the city’s own study of land values, the council tentatively approved purchase of a park site from Kojima and seemed poised to seal the deal on the housing parcel as well.

Meanwhile, Teran and 24 other trailer camp directors were being trained to run a new housing corporation in their new community.

Kojima, angling to help build dwellings on the farmland he was selling, visited the trailer park to solicit tenants’ support. So did a manufactured housing builder and the county’s largest developer of low-income dwellings.

“It doesn’t matter what it is, I only want a decent place to live,” Luis Teran said hopefully in a May interview. Consuelo Teran said she had seen photos of manufactured housing such as the ones that might be built for her to buy. “They’re so gorgeous,” she said, “because I’ve lived here so long.”

During Kojima’s lengthy negotiations with the city, however, the new owner of the Terans’ ramshackle trailer park decided that she would not close it after all, but instead invest $300,000 to meet minimum health and safety standards.

So city officials now say they do not see the Kojima land primarily as a relocation site for trailer park residents.

And with the city ready to close a sale-and-development agreement with Kojima, officials acknowledge that the houses Kojima has first chance to build are too expensive for most trailer dwellers.

Even with steep subsidies, the $90,000 manufactured houses would carry mortgage payments of perhaps $600 a month. Teran says most residents make about $15,000 a year and can afford monthly payments of no more than $400.

“I don’t think that relocation is going to happen,” Councilman Bedford Pinkard said recently, echoing the sentiments of the council majority.

Most trailer dwellers “won’t qualify, and that’s the reality,” Herrera said. “This is a real discouraging process for me, because for so many years there have been expectations and nothing has developed.”

Luis Teran described Friday how he sees the latest disappointment.

“The City Council has been lying to us all the time,” he said.