D.A. Probe Focuses on Endorsements

The district attorney’s office is investigating whether two City Council members attempted to improperly influence the Chamber of Commerce’s endorsement of candidates in next week’s council election.

Ventura attorney Bart Bleuel, chairman of the chamber’s Political Action Committee, confirmed Thursday he and other PAC members have been questioned by district attorney’s investigators on whether the council members tried to get the committee to switch one of its three endorsements to back Mayor Jim Friedman.

Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury would not comment on the case.

Bleuel would not identify the council members he said are suspected of contacting PAC members or their bosses on behalf of Friedman.

“I don’t approve of anybody who is in public office using their office to curry political favor,” said Bleuel, a former prosecutor in Sacramento. “But I don’t think this elevates itself to a prosecution. It’s local politics.”

Friedman dismissed the accusations. “This is frankly a dirty, sneaky political trick,” he said.

The alleged council contacts were made after the committee recommended on Sept. 15 endorsing businessman Doug Halter, county planner Carl Moorehouse and Councilman Ray Di Guilio, Bleuel said.

The full chamber board asked the PAC to reconsider recommending Friedman, a former chamber president, Bleuel said. But the committee stuck with its original endorsements.

Bleuel said district attorney investigators have interviewed him and PAC members Mike Carney, Nancy Williams and Pam Drake. Carney, an employee of Pacific Bell, would not comment.

Williams, a manager for Southern California Edison, said no council member called her or her bosses to intervene for Friedman. But Williams said she resigned from the PAC because her superiors did not want her on a committee that endorses individual candidates.