Sanchez, Padilla Spar Over Vote by City Panel

Corinne Sanchez alleged Wednesday that her 7th District Los Angeles City Council rival, Alex Padilla, voted as a city commissioner to delay repairs on an apartment building in an earthquake-ravaged “ghost town” in order to benefit political allies.

The two are locked in an increasingly bitter struggle for the northeast San Fernando Valley seat, to be decided by voters in three weeks.

Padilla’s campaign answered the allegations point by point, denying any impropriety during his service as a member of the city Building and Safety Commission.

Sanchez called Wednesday for an investigation by the city Ethics Commission into whether Padilla “abused his position” in a 1997 vote involving the controversial Neighborhood Empowerment and Economic Development (NEED) Inc., which included some of Padilla’s backers.

At Padilla’s first meeting after his appointment, the commission voted June 17, 1997, to grant NEED a 30-day extension to comply with a nuisance abatement order for an apartment complex owned by NEED on Orion Avenue in Van Nuys.

The 47-unit apartment building had suffered severe damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and NEED had received a city Housing Department loan to renovate the property. NEED had come under fire at the time for delays in repairing earthquake-damaged properties it had purchased in North Hills ghost towns with city loans.

City inspectors, finding the building was being used by vagrants, ordered NEED to secure the property and begin repairs or face demolition.

Padilla joined the other four commissioners in June in granting a one-month continuance, the second delay granted for the project. The following month the commission found NEED had started work and the property no longer represented a public nuisance.

In a letter of complaint to the Ethics Commission, Sanchez said the commission had voted in nearly every other case to demolish nuisance properties.

“The 30-day extension can be credited with saving the project for NEED--a privilege other property owners did not receive,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez said NEED’s board in 1997 included James Acevedo, who this year has been paid $25,000 by the Padilla campaign to provide phone banking services and a building for the campaign’s phone operation. Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar), Padilla’s employer and a major force in his campaign, is a founder of NEED and a former member of the NEED board of directors. Two who attended the commission meeting on behalf of the project--Ruben Romero of NEED and contractor Kima Panossia--have contributed to Padilla’s campaign.

“There should be an immediate investigation into Padilla’s actions,” Sanchez said. “It appears that he was acting on behalf of his well-connected political benefactors, and not in the interests of the people of the 7th Council District.

“Now Padilla is being rewarded with campaign contributions and the support of a political machine with questionable ethics,” Sanchez added.

In particular, Sanchez asked for the probe to determine whether Padilla had a conflict of interest stemming from his employment as a legislative aide to Cardenas. Cardenas said he left the NEED board two years before the vote.

Padilla quit the commission in December to run for City Council in the northeast San Fernando Valley district. His campaign manager, Rick Taylor, called the criticism a sign of a “desperate candidate.”

Taylor said the commission was unanimous in granting the extension, and that former 7th District Councilman Richard Alarcon, who has endorsed Sanchez, supported the 30-day extension.

“It is a real reach,” Taylor said of the accusations. “It’s a desperate candidate trying to throw mud rather than talk about the issues of the district.”

LeeAnn Pelham, a deputy director for the Ethics Commission, declined to comment on the issue, citing agency policy not to talk on the status of complaints.