Conflict Is Alleged in Vote by El Monte Councilman

One day last summer, El Monte Councilman Jack Thurston got a state license to sell vehicles at a local Hyundai dealership.

The next day, Thurston voted to approve an agreement between the city and his new boss. The dealership’s owners hope to expand, and the agreement could provide them with some prime real estate occupied by homes and businesses.

Now some residents are questioning whether Thurston was representing voters or his boss--even though he didn’t start working for the dealership until a few days after the vote.

“The neighbors saw him working for the car dealer,” said Norma Edith Garcia, a neighborhood activist. “He is getting paid by the car dealer at the same time he is trying to give him a sweetheart deal at the neighborhood’s expense.”

State officials said Thurston sought and received a license to work as a car salesman from the Department of Motor Vehicles for the parent company of Famous Ed’s Hyundai on July 16.

On July 17, the City Council, sitting as the redevelopment agency board, approved a contract to give Scott Gunderson exclusive rights to negotiate with the city to obtain a four- to six-acre site north of the San Bernardino Freeway.

Gunderson was seeking the city’s help to expand Famous Ed’s, which he owns with partner Ed Dominguez. He also wanted to relocate his Scott Pontiac GMC dealership, on Valley Boulevard, next to Famous Ed’s on Santa Anita Avenue.

Dominguez concurs with DMV records showing Thurston obtained his license to sell cars for Famous Ed’s on July 16. Thurston actually began work, he said, on July 21, four days after the council approved the agreement with Gunderson.

Thurston, who worked about a month, was paid on a commission basis and received at least two biweekly checks, Dominguez said.

Thurston said he did work as a car salesman at the dealership, but said it did not create a conflict of interest. But he gives conflicting accounts of when he worked for the dealership.

In an interview Oct. 10, Thurston said, as did Dominguez, that he worked for Famous Ed’s until August.

“I have not worked with Gunderson in more than a month and a half,” he said. “[My] former employer has nothing to do with it [the vote].”

In a recent interview, Thurston gave a different timeline for his employment. “I did not vote on anything until long after leaving,” he insisted, saying he did not work there in July. When asked if worked there in April or May, he replied yes.

DMV officials said Thurston was not licensed to sell cars at that time. But they also said it is not uncommon for salespeople to work in other jobs at a dealership before obtaining a sales license.

Thurston, an 11-year council veteran, said he left the car dealership on good terms. “He was a good boss,” Thurston said of Gunderson. “He paid me every two weeks.”

But his relationship with Gunderson, he said, would not influence his vote on any city business with the dealer in the future.

One of Thurston’s council colleagues, Tony Fellow, said Thurston’s ethics were above reproach. “Jack Thurston is the most honorable man of integrity I have ever served with on a board,” Fellow said. “We need people like him in local government and Congress.”

Fellow said some of Thurston’s critics have pushed the issue out of political ambition. “Norma Garcia, she wants to run for council,” he added.

Thurston, 66, got into the car business after, among other things, running a drapery business and working as a dispatcher and administrator at a bus company. He said he decided to get out of the car-selling business “because I found better things to do, like retirement.”

Legal experts familiar with conflict-of-interest issues say conduct such as Thurston’s may violate state laws.

Under California’s Government Code 1090, public officials “shall not be financially interested in any contract made by them in their official capacity.” City officers with financial interests in a contract cannot vote or participate in a contract decision.

Those convicted of violating the law can be thrown out of office. Municipal lawyers say agreements for exclusive negotiations--such as the one the El Monte City Council approved--are considered contracts that fall within the provisions of that law.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Wilson said under the law, a “financial interest” isn’t narrowly defined as a payment to a public official. He offered an example: An official votes on an issue affecting a company while knowing--and that knowledge is a key factor--the company will hire him in the future. That would constitute a conflict even if the official wasn’t technically an employee when the vote occurred.

Public officials are also subject to the Political Reform Act, which prohibits them from having an economic interest in any issue they vote on or discuss.

Robert Stern, president of the Center for Government Studies, who helped write the reform act, said a public official who receives $500 or more from any individual in wages or commissions before a decision cannot vote on a contract involving that person.

An official with a contract for work, a written offer of a job or some legal guarantee that he or she is being given a job also cannot vote, Stern said.

He said the law does not apply, however, if a public official gets a job with a person after voting on a contract involving that individual. “Conflicts aren’t black and white,” Stern added.

Thurston said he consulted with City Atty. E. Clarke Moseley and was told by the lawyer it was appropriate to vote. Moseley did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

Although Thurston did not raise the possibility of a conflict of interest, Moseley did--for himself.

His El Monte law firm also represents car dealer Gunderson. He asked the city to bring in another attorney to handle issues related to the negotiations, according to meeting minutes.

Gunderson and Dominguez said they also consulted with a lawyer before hiring Thurston. Dominguez said his only motivation for hiring Thurston was to help a friend. Dominguez said there was no conflict of interest because Thurston was working on commission.

State law does not distinguish between commission and salary, said Roman Porter, spokesman for the California Fair Political Practices Commission, a state watchdog agency.

Gunderson, meanwhile, plans to continue working with the city to expand his dealerships.

City officials have their own motivations for expanding the dealership, and it comes down to economics. El Monte is home to 65 car dealerships, and their tax dollars are the lifeblood of the blue-collar city of 116,000 residents. Those tax dollars pay for police, firefighters and pothole repairs, city officials say.

The site, bordered on the west by Santa Anita Avenue and on the east by Granada Avenue, is part of a redevelopment area, where the city has the authority to take property by eminent domain.

City Manager Harold Johanson said the area was designated for redevelopment after a year of discussions between staff members and a neighborhood committee, so it should have come as no shock to residents when the expansion plan for Famous Ed’s was proposed.

Johanson said the city staff, in response to residents’ protests, has dropped plans to acquire and bulldoze a dozen houses on the west side of Granada, but it still intends to acquire a few aging apartment buildings north of Santa Anita and a house on Brockway.

The city could use the power of eminent domain to take the properties, but officials say owners usually sell. “There has never been a case in the city where people were displaced and didn’t come out ahead of the game,” Thurston said.

But some residents say Thurston is not one to judge.

“This [is a] person who is going to decide the future of this community and who at the same time is involved with the car dealership,” said Hernan Munayco, a neighborhood leader. “I don’t think he can make an impartial decision. It’s immoral and it upsets us that Gunderson has direct contact with a council member.”