Fishery Program Contracts Subject of State Inquiries : Funds: Jobs were awarded to a friend of Sen. Costa and a Wilson aide. Records show little work is complete.

Over the past several years, a powerful Democratic legislator and a top official in the Wilson Administration have nurtured a program with an admirable goal--restoration of the state’s dwindling bass fisheries.

But records show the “Adopt a Lake” program has done little to enhance fish habitats and has almost exclusively benefited a mutual friend of state Sen. Jim Costa (D-Hanford) and Craig Schmidt, a longtime assistant to Gov. Pete Wilson.

The Department of Fish and Game awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts to an organization operated by Byron Kemmer, a bass fisherman and truck driver from Fresno who is a friend of the two state officials.

Contracts were awarded even though the state officials responsible for overseeing the jobs say they had serious doubts about whether the work was being done right or at all. The program, designed to improve fisheries at lakes from Redding to Los Angeles County, now is the subject of a state audit and a criminal investigation by the state attorney general’s office.

Only four of the 16 contracts awarded to Kemmer’s organization were completed, according to documents obtained through the state Public Records Act. The few times Fish and Game officials threatened to curtail the program or delay payment because of serious problems, Costa and Schmidt intervened to help keep cash and contracts flowing.

In an interview, Kemmer expressed regret that the program has foundered, denied that he profited personally and blamed the bureaucracy for impeding his attempts to increase the bass populations in some of California’s most popular lakes. “If I was going to get rich, I sure as hell wouldn’t have started a nonprofit and gone through all the trials and tribulations I’ve gone through,” said Kemmer, who estimated that he made a total of only $30,000 over four years as full-time executive director of Golden State Adopt a Lake Conservancy.

Kemmer acknowledged that Schmidt played an instrumental role in the formation of his nonprofit organization, and that without Costa the program would not have been created and funded. Records show that Kemmer’s organization was awarded contracts totaling more than $350,000 since 1991 and was paid $155,661.

State oversight of the habitat restoration program was so lax that officials failed to follow their own procedures to ensure that the state was getting what it paid for.

“There’s a lot of people to blame for this,” said Howard Shainberg, a recently retired state biologist who oversaw lakes in Southern California. “(Kemmer) sure took advantage of the system. I myself probably let him get away with things.”

Schmidt, who is Wilson’s emissary to Central Valley farming and water interests, confirmed that he assisted Kemmer on five occasions. “I wouldn’t consider this intervening,” he said. “I consider it doing a constituent service.”

Costa denied in an interview that he exerted any influence that benefited Kemmer and said he hopes the state audit will bear that out. “If there are any problems with this program, I hope Fish and Game gets to the bottom of it and cleans it up. This program makes sense.”

Costa, Schmidt and Kemmer all come from agricultural backgrounds in Fresno, where Adopt a Lake was launched seven years ago. Costa, 42, first elected to state office in 1978, became friends with Kemmer, 49, through their mutual interest in lakes. Schmidt, a 42-year-old political operative, forged a relationship on the campaign trail with Kemmer, who described himself as an occasional driver for some Republican candidates.

Boyd Gibbons, Fish and Game director, said, “What I have found so far is enough to convince me to continue pursuing this thing. . . . I took it to the attorney general and that speaks for itself.”

Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler refused to comment on specific problems with the program’s administration or the unusual lobbying role of Schmidt, his special assistant, until completion of an internal audit and the attorney general’s probe. The program has been suspended and records from Fish and Game and Kemmer’s organization have been subpoenaed.

A monthlong examination of Adopt a Lake revealed that this small program, lost within a $160-million-a-year agency, met few of its original goals and was undermined by politics and state mismanagement.

Records and interviews show:

* The program was conceived in 1988 by then-Assemblyman Costa, who was chairman of the legislative committee overseeing Fish and Game. Costa set up a meeting between Kemmer and then-Fish and Game Director Pete Bontadelli. To the surprise of subordinates, Bontadelli agreed to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding that ultimately went to Kemmer’s organization in large part.

* While the program was technically open to anyone willing to repair fish habitat in California lakes, Kemmer’s nonprofit had advantages that no other contractor could match. Not only did Kemmer have powerful political allies, but his relationship with Fish and Game was so close that one official helped him draw up his proposals on a state computer.

* In violation of department procedures, Kemmer’s organization was allowed to receive payment on some contracts without any inspection to determine if the work was completed. After reviewing the contracts, auditors recently notified two state agencies of possible irregularities, and the matter was referred to the attorney general’s office last week for criminal investigation.

* In 1993, as Fish and Game officials were questioning Kemmer’s performance, Schmidt intervened to get the California Conservation Corps to help Kemmer finish habitat work at three lakes.

*

The Adopt a Lake program was a cause of celebration in 1989 for California anglers, a vocal group who have complained for years that fish populations are fast dwindling in the man-made lakes that dot the state. The program outlined ways that nonprofit groups could improve fish populations by planting trees, bushes and grass and constructing berms as cover for juvenile fish to hide from predators.

The state, in return for volunteer work, would cover the hard costs of equipment, supplies and some labor.

“The idea is fantastic,” said Fred Kopperdahl, a Fish and Game biologist in Rancho Cordova. But even Kopperdahl bemoaned the fact that Kemmer was allowed to monopolize the program.

Potential competitors said they concluded that the Adopt a Lake program and Kemmer were one and the same, and there was little hope of winning contracts. Even before the first one was awarded, Kemmer was passing out literature that touted his habitat improvement program as the designated beneficiary of Fish and Game funds.

“Kemmer had the inside position from Day 1,” said retired reservoir biologist Shainberg. In addition to his friendship with Schmidt and Costa, Kemmer said he was friends with Dennis Lee, the Fish and Game supervisor who oversaw the Adopt a Lake program. When Kemmer traveled to Sacramento, he said he stayed at Lee’s house, and vice versa.

Kemmer’s contract proposals, including the work to be done and the dollar amount, were written on a state computer with the help of Randy Kelly, a senior biologist in the agency’s Fresno office.

“(Kemmer) would submit something to me and I’d clean it up and say this was right or wrong with it,” Kelly said.

Kelly acknowledged that this unusual triple role--writing the proposals, judging them and inspecting the work--placed him in an awkward position that created an appearance of a conflict.

But Kelly said he would have helped anyone who had sought his assistance as Kemmer had.

Richard Bernheimer, Fish and Game’s deputy director, said Kemmer’s ties to many staff members in Fresno and Sacramento is one of the issues being closely examined by the auditor. “It might appear on the surface that there wasn’t an arm’s length relationship,” he said.

With the help of Kelly and others inside Fish and Game, Kemmer was able to win 16 of the 20 Adopt a Lake contracts but not without generating complaints.

Among those who voiced concerns about Kemmer’s organization was Charles McNees, a bass fisherman who has been interviewed recently by state auditors.

State officials said McNees told auditors that he severed his relationship with Kemmer after he told him one night over drinks that he planned to inflate the costs of the Adopt a Lake work. Kemmer flatly denies the allegation.

McNees said he went to Fresno police, the Fresno district attorney’s office, Costa’s office, the attorney general’s office and finally to Fish and Game higher-ups in Sacramento several years ago. “No one wanted to listen,” he said.

Despite McNees’ warnings, the agency approved Kemmer’s first proposal in January, 1991--a $19,300 contract to construct 40 berms and plant grass for fish habitat at Shasta Lake near Redding. This first job went smoothly for the most part, officials said, but that was not the case with the projects that followed.

At New Melones Lake, a reservoir on the Stanislaus River in Tuolumne County, the state agreed to pay Kemmer’s group $16,300 for similar work. A contractor hired to construct the berms said Kemmer’s organization only completed a fraction of the job, but the state still ended up paying $10,000.

“He got paid $10,000 for nothing, absolutely nothing,” said Tom Schachten, the contractor who owns a sporting goods store on the lake.

Kemmer said he did preliminary work on the New Melones project but could not finish it because he had trouble lining up enough volunteers.

Shainberg, the retired Fish and Game biologist, acknowledged that at New Melones and other lakes under his jurisdiction he approved payments to Kemmer without inspecting any of the work. “I had suspicions he wasn’t doing the work. But I couldn’t be out there every day watching Byron Kemmer.”

Shainberg said formal inspections and documentation of billing were not required by his higher-ups. “I know that doesn’t absolve me of responsibility, but that’s the way the system worked.”

Kelly said he too was concerned about Kemmer’s bookkeeping and told Kemmer in 1991 that an audit was planned--but it never came.

The auditor is now examining why Kemmer’s organization was paid for work that was never inspected, a violation of department policy. “We are very concerned about laxity in the contract process,” said Deputy Director Bernheimer.

A cursory review of records subpoenaed from Kemmer reveals a gap in the documentation needed to prove that costs were incurred and work completed, he said.

When payments were held up because of his own sloppy bookkeeping and department red tape, Kemmer did not hesitate to call in Costa or his office, officials said.

“I used to get calls from Costa’s office regarding primarily late payments and contracts being approved,” said Fish and Game Inland Fisheries Director Tim Farley.

Costa said he could not recall any instance when he placed a call to Fish and Game officials on behalf of Kemmer. “Byron was kind of a gadfly who, when he would run into me, he’d complain,” he said. “I never made a call on behalf of Byron.”

State records indicate Costa and his office on several occasions talked to state officials regarding Kemmer.

When Kemmer was having trouble completing habitat work at Lake Isabella along the Kern River in 1993, he got help from Schmidt.

Schmidt lobbied officials in the California Conservation Corps to send squads of workers to help Kemmer plant willows along the lake and sink Christmas trees in the lake bottom as habitat for fish.

“Schmidt asked me to come to a meeting at his office,” said Betty Harris, a regional director of CCC. “Kemmer was there and he was using the name of the governor. Looking back, it was a little more fishy than I realized.”

She said she regretted giving a green light to help Kemmer because he never paid her agency close to $15,000 in wages for work on two lakes. “I wrote a memo to my boss. I told him Kemmer was billing the state for our wages and we didn’t get paid.

“We shouldn’t be doing business with him.”

Kemmer said he did not agree to pay the $15,000, but he conceded he does owe the CCC $8,000 for work performed on a third lake.

Schmidt said he had no knowledge of the dispute. He said his job was to put Kemmer and the CCC together, although he conceded he had not done that for any other contractor.

From the beginning, Kemmer’s organization was marked by turmoil. He went through three boards of directors. One board quit en masse after it confronted Kemmer over the documentation of invoices, according to former officials.

“We told him we wanted full documentation,” said Sandy Ditommaso, the treasurer and one of the board members who quit. “He had been in control for so long that we couldn’t get him to work with us. As far as he was concerned, he owned Adopt a Lake.”

Fish and Game continued to do business with Kemmer and went one step further: officials yielded to his request to drop a key component of Adopt a Lake--the requirement that any state money be matched by volunteer labor and donations. Officials now concede that this change--made by mid-level bureaucrats without the approval of superiors--altered the very public-private concept of the program.

The work Kemmer did get done is a mixed legacy, officials said. He completed four of the 16 contracts, resulting in habitat improvement. But hundreds of willow trees--planted with the hope of protecting fish--are now dead.

Budget constraints finally caused bureaucrats to get tough with Kemmer. Citing $297,000 worth of projects that Kemmer’s nonprofit had yet to complete, they finally decided to curtail the program in the fall of 1993.

Again, the response was swift.

“I have been made aware that the Department of Fish and Game may be considering the elimination of the Adopt a Lake program,” Costa wrote to Director Boyd Gibbons in November of 1993. “This program has been directly instrumental in the restoration of fishery resources in a number of lakes. . . . “

A call from another Kemmer ally, Schmidt, led to the internal audit last month. Schmidt wanted to know why Kemmer had not been paid for work completed in the summer of 1994. Officials looked into the matter and discovered that Kemmer’s contract had expired and that he was not entitled to be paid.

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A Lagging Lake Program

Following are some of the lakes where the fish habitat was to have been improved under a state program called Adopt a Lake:

1) LAKE SHASTA, Shasta County

* Program: Construct 400 feet of wave-reduction booms, install 45 berms, plant 1,200 willow and button-bush plants, and construct brush shelters from 2,000 Christmas trees provided by growers who overstocked.

* Status: Two contracts completed; one not started.

2) BLACK BUTTE RESERVOIR, Glenn County

* Program: Install 20 berms and make other habitat improvements.

* Status: Not started.

3) LAKE BERRYESSA, Napa County

* Program: Propagate and plant 400 plants, build 40 brush shelters from Christmas trees and other material.

* Status: Completed.

4) FOLSOM LAKE, Sacramento and El Dorado counties

* Program: Install 15 berms on south fork and make other habitat improvements.

* Status: Partly completed.

5) NEW MELONES RESERVOIR, Calaveras and Tuolumne counties

* Program: Install 25 water- and soil-retention berms and 40 underwater structures, and seed and fertilize 100 acres with native grasses.

* Status: Partly completed.

6) DON PEDRO RESERVOIR, Tuolumne County

* Program: Install 50 berms on shore and 120 underwater structures, and seed 80 acres with native grasses. Construct 900 feet of wave-reduction booms, install 75 water- and soil-retention berms, plant 3,000 willow and buttonbush plants, and construct brush shelters from discarded Christmas trees.

7) BASS LAKE, Madera County

* Program: Contract missing from state files.

* Status: Not started.

8) LAKE KAWEAH, Tulare County

* Program: Improve fishing conditions and habitat for fish.

* Status: Partly completed.

9) LAKE NACIMIENTO, Monterey County

* Program: Raise and plant 400 drought- and flood-tolerant plants, and construct 40 brush shelters and discarded Christmas trees, each 50 feet long.

* Status: Not started.

10) LAKE ISABELLA, Kern County

* Program: Build an irrigation system, install 80 berms, plant 1,200 willow and buttonbush plants, build 80 brush shelters, and install 100 catfish spawning structures.

11) CASTAIC LAKE, Los Angeles County

* Program: Plant 1,800 trees and bushes in the zone where lake levels fluctuate as the reservoir is filled or emptied.

* Status: Not started.

Source: State Department of Fish and Game