Cultural Panel Chief Urged to Resign Over Residency

The president of Los Angeles’ Cultural Heritage Commission, the agency that selects city landmarks, should resign because he has not lived in the city for years, according to the city attorney’s office.

Amarjit S. Marwah owns a home in Malibu and “was neither properly registered to vote in the city of Los Angeles” nor “legally domiciled in this city” when appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to his current term of office, said a report by City Atty. James K. Hahn.

The residency requirement is contained in the Los Angeles Administrative Code, which states that a member of the Cultural Heritage Commission must, like most other commissioners, be a “qualified elector of the city of Los Angeles.”

If Marwah does not resign, Bradley should remove him, Hahn wrote to the mayor’s office.

Hahn sent his report to Deputy Mayor Mark D. Fabiani last Jan. 14, but the mayor’s office apparently did not notify Marwah of the city attorney’s findings until Tuesday, after a Times inquiry.

Bradley press secretary Bill Chandler said a letter was sent this week to the commissioner asking Marwah to state whether he meets the residency requirements. Chandler refused to release the letter, saying it involved a personnel matter.

The mayor’s office did not ask for Marwah’s resignation outright, Chandler said, because the city attorney’s report said that the questions about his residency could not be answered with “complete certainty.”

Before a commission meeting began Wednesday morning, Marwah said he had “no comment” on Hahn’s report and declined to say whether he would resign. “When I have read the report, I will answer,” he said.

Chandler attributed the 2 1/2-month delay in responding to the report to the “heavy workload” of an unnamed staff member assigned to the matter. “The city attorney took a year, we only took two months,” the spokesman said.

The mayor’s office had asked the city attorney to examine Marwah’s residency after The Times reported in January, 1990, that Marwah owned no property in Los Angeles, but maintained a 10-acre, gated complex along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

Much of the city attorney’s 28-page report dealt with what the term “qualified elector” means, and whether Marwah fits that definition.

“It is our advice that a ‘qualified elector’ must be properly registered to vote at a residence in the city,” said the report. “We believe it probable that, if the question were presented to it, a court would hold Dr. Marwah not to have been domiciled in the city of Los Angeles at the time he was appointed, confirmed and sworn into his current term of office, and therefore not to have been a ‘qualified elector’ of the city.” Marwah’s last appointment, to a five-year term, was made in 1989.

Marwah, a Crenshaw district dentist and longtime Bradley supporter, was first appointed to the Cultural Affairs Commission in 1981. Marwah has been among the top contributors to Bradley campaigns for several years. Between 1983 and 1988, he made donations totaling $40,075. Bradley campaign records also indicate that in addition to his own donations, Marwah has helped raise several thousand dollars in donations from others.

When Marwah was first appointed to the commission, there was no residency requirement for its members. Marwah registered to vote in 1982 at his Malibu home.

But the City Council changed the requirements for commission members on Sept. 5, 1985. Three days later, Hahn’s report noted, Marwah changed his Malibu voter registration to his dental office at 3701 Stocker St., a Los Angeles address.

Though state law requires voter registration listings to be from one’s residence, Marwah’s registration was not questioned until the Times article last year.

After the article, the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder notified Marwah that his registration was not valid and canceled it.

Marwah reregistered, listing a new address, a residence in Baldwin Hills owned by two of his friends, Albert and Gailya Mayfield. Marwah told The Times he stayed in one of their bedrooms on weeknights.

But the city attorney’s report stated: “A question remains as to the legality of that location being his ‘residence’ for voting purposes, and hence as to the validity of such registration.”

A registered address must be a person’s principal “domicile,” according to the California Election Code. The city attorney noted that Marwah’s wife lives in Malibu, his daughter attended school there before her marriage, and his car is registered at the Malibu home.

Hahn’s report contrasted that with the address on Marwah’s voter registration. “Other than staying several nights a week as a guest at the location where he is registered to vote, (Marwah) maintains no telephone there in his name, does not receive mail there, pays no rent, and does not list the address on his driver’s license or vehicle registration,” said the city attorney.

Marcia Ventura, spokeswoman for the county registrar-recorder, said Wednesday that the agency had accepted the Baldwin Hills address as Marwah’s residence without checking its validity. “We’re not an investigative agency,” she said.

The Cultural Heritage Commission is one of 42 city commissions, and Marwah is among about 200 commissioners appointed by the mayor. He has been president of the commission since 1985, and is known as a dedicated supporter of landmark preservation. The city’s designated landmarks have more than doubled, to more than 500 buildings and sites, during his tenure.