Wieder, Son Involved in Marina Lease Negotiations : Government: Operator of facility contributed to her campaign, employed family member as lobbyist.

SANTA ANA —  Over the past year, Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder has frequently interceded with county officials to assist a Huntington Harbour marina operator who had given money to her campaigns and employed her son as a lobbyist.

Partly as a result, the county is close to renewing a long-term lease for Sunset Marina Park--eight years before the current lease expires and with no competitive bidding.

Top county officials--including Wieder--say the proposed new lease could be an excellent deal for the county. It would call for a major increase in the county’s share of marina income as well as more picnic tables, extra parking and expanded boat storage.

Wieder defended her involvement, saying she has tried only to get the county the “best bang for our buck” while ensuring fair treatment for the marina operator. She said she was not influenced by her son or by the marina operator’s $1,800 in campaign contributions since 1981.

Her son, Lee E. Wieder, stressed that he tried to avoid trading on his family name during his contacts with county officials. But he acknowledged, “I was sensing tension from certain (county) staff people, maybe relating to their concern of why I was there.”

Harriett Wieder’s role in the marina lease illustrates the extent to which supervisors can independently drive policy and the county bureaucracy on a matter within their districts--in this case, also helping a campaign donor who employed her son.

At the same time, the Sunset Marina lease has generated considerable controversy within county government, in part because of Wieder’s actions and the role of her son. An examination of public records and interviews shows:

* In December, 1989, county supervisors, including Wieder, voted to open negotiations with the current marina operator--Goldrich & Kest Inc.--and to forgo competitive bidding.

* Almost immediately, county officials began formal talks with marina representatives, and Lee E. Wieder represented the firm at the negotiating table. Lee Wieder had been hired in early 1989 to help Goldrich & Kest submit environmental studies in preparation for the possible renewal of the Sunset Marina lease. He remained part of the negotiating team until mid-1990, when Goldrich & Kest discharged him as a lobbyist.

* When talks reached an impasse in late 1990, Supervisor Wieder met with the president of Goldrich & Kest, who complained angrily about the county’s negotiators.

* After that meeting, she told top county executives to step in and replace the county’s original negotiators.

* Among those dumped was Robert G. Fisher, the head of the county’s Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department, who believed the county should demand a bigger share of marina income.

* When negotiations resumed, Orange County government’s No. 2 administrator was in charge, and Supervisor Wieder assigned her top staff aide to attend the first session.

* On Feb. 5, 1991--four months after authorizing a study that would, among other things, recommend new income and management options for Sunset Marina, including the possible replacement of Goldrich & Kest--Wieder and her colleagues on the Board of Supervisors voted to exclude Sunset from the study. Two other county-owned marinas were left in the study.

* By early this month, the county and Goldrich & Kest had neared a final agreement on a proposed lease. The lease agreement still requires approval by the Board of Supervisors, and officials have so far declined to reveal complete terms of the pact.

In extensive interviews over the last week, Supervisor Wieder and her son have offered differing recollections of whether or when she knew of his role in the Sunset Marina negotiations.

The supervisor at first said she did not know until being questioned by The Times that Lee Wieder was in any way involved with lease negotiations and, if she had known, she would have told him to bow out.

But on Friday, the supervisor said that after further recollection she believes her son had apprised her at the conclusion of his involvement with Goldrich & Kest.

Nevertheless, she said Friday, there was nothing untoward in her involvement with the lease negotiations, because in her view Lee Wieder was hired to do work related to planning and zoning and “administrative processing” regarding Sunset Marina.

County records, the president of Goldrich & Kest and Lee Wieder himself all say he participated as a lobbyist in the formal negotiations for seven months, until June, 1990.

Lee Wieder told The Times that he thought he and his mother discussed “the sensitivity of perceived conflict” near the outset of his gaining Goldrich & Kest as a client, in early 1989. He said that he also informed his mother when Goldrich discharged him in June, 1990.

Lee Wieder represented Goldrich & Kest in the Sunset lease negotiations during what he described as numerous meetings and phone calls with county officials. In telephone interviews from his office in Palo Alto, Lee Wieder said that during most of 1989 he advised Goldrich & Kest on environmental and planning issues regarding possible renewal of the Sunset lease. That work, he said, included contacts with county staff officials. And from January through June, 1990, he said, he represented the firm in the lease negotiations with Orange County government.

He declined to say how much he earned but told The Times that at first he was paid his standard rate of $90 an hour, then later, during the negotiations, received $2,000 or $3,000 a month. Wieder, 47, said he lobbied Orange County local government officials throughout the 1980s before moving two years ago to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is now president of his own firm.

As for how Goldrich & Kest came to hire him, Wieder said: “Obviously, the name Wieder is there. But if you’re asking me why (Goldrich & Kest) hired me, you’ll have to ask them. . . . The opportunity came up, but I made it real clear to the client that I would not lobby the other supervisors, and the project would have to stand on its own.”

At his last negotiating session with county officials, on June 21, 1990, Wieder was accompanied by Jona Goldrich, president of the Culver City-based firm.

Goldrich, a prominent developer who says he has known Harriett Wieder since the 1960s, when she worked on the staff of Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, said that when he hired the supervisor’s son “he represented himself as a lobbyist in Orange County.” Goldrich said that he engaged Lee Wieder on a “contract retainer” that was tied to the accomplishment of goals in the Sunset Marina negotiations. Lee Wieder said he was not aware of any goals attached to his retainer.

In any event, Goldrich said that he discharged Wieder because he became dissatisfied with the lack of progress in the negotiations. Goldrich also said that he viewed as a disadvantage Lee Wieder’s having to commute to the talks from his home in Palo Alto.

“The last meeting he (Wieder) was there, we didn’t get anywhere,” Goldrich said. “That’s when I decided to hire (Frank) Michelena,” a veteran Orange County lobbyist who now represents the firm. Michelena declined to be interviewed.

It was soon after--in December, 1990, or early January--that Supervisor Wieder insisted on a reshuffling of county negotiators, according to Assistant County Administrator Murry Cable and other officials familiar with the matter.

Wieder asked Cable, the county’s No. 2 staff executive, to take over the talks. Then, officials say, she insisted that Fisher, the harbor, beaches and parks director, and his staff be removed. Fisher declined to comment.

Said Cable: “I was asked to get involved with it by Supervisor Wieder, when they (Goldrich & Kest) were having difficulty in the negotiations with county staff. That’s how I got dragged into it.”

A second county executive assigned to the negotiations along with Cable also described Wieder’s concern.

“You need to talk to Supervisor Wieder, but what she was concerned about was whether we were doing our best,” said John W. Sibley, the chief deputy of the county Environmental Management Agency. “It’s her district.”

In his view, Sibley said the lease renewal terms nearing finalization would be “great” for the county, packaged with $4.8 million of county-financed improvements that would include more picnic tables, increased parking and a glass-enclosed nature display. The existing lease calls for the county to receive about 20% of the revenue from the marina, which last year grossed $1.4 million, records indicate.

Sibley said he hopes to have a signed, tentative agreement within days. Cable said he expects the pact to go to the Board of Supervisors for approval within “two to three weeks.”

Environmental Management Agency Director Michael M. Ruane, whose agency has jurisdiction over Sunset Marina and the county’s four other harbors, acknowledged that Supervisor Wieder took an interest in the lease talks.

“The bottom line is, there was nothing inappropriate and there is nothing inappropriate in terms of our actions being politically driven. . . . It’s in her (Wieder’s) district, and we have kept her apprised. She gives us input on matters affecting Sunset Marina, and it’s not just the lease,” Ruane said.

County officials who dealt with Wieder’s son said that he was low-key, pleasant and never made reference to his mother or to her position on the Board of Supervisors.

Goldrich said that he considers the pending renewal of the Sunset Marina lease “a very good deal” for Orange County, and an “acceptable deal” for his firm. Goldrich’s company has brokered and administered the boat slips at Sunset Marina since it opened in 1969.

Goldrich, one of Southern California’s most prominent, politically active developers, said that he has contributed to Wieder’s campaigns because she has asked him to do so, adding:

“You never know when I might need something in her district. And I support all supervisors who are pro-development. . . . The way Orange County works, each supervisor kind of takes care of their own district.” But Goldrich said he did not think he has ever won Wieder’s support because of campaign donations or the hiring of her son.

It was on Dec. 5, 1989, that the county began in earnest to review and renegotiate the Sunset Marina lease. On that day, Wieder and her colleagues voted unanimously to authorize exclusive negotiations with Goldrich & Kest for renewal of the 30-year lease, although it was not set to expire until June, 1999.

Noting Goldrich & Kest’s willingness to build more dry-boat storage facilities immediately, the supervisors declared that renewing the lease would carry “significant public benefit.” Without such a finding, county policy calls for long-term leases to run until expiration, followed by competitive bidding.

Campaign records show that, 13 days before the December, 1989, vote, Wieder received the largest of her contributions from Goldrich & Kest, $1,000. The company also gave Wieder $500 in 1984 and $300 in 1981. Goldrich & Kest over the past decade has contributed to one other Orange County supervisor, Don R. Roth, who received $700 in 1987.

Wieder said the proximity of the $1,000 contribution and her vote “was probably a total coincidence.” A spokeswoman for the supervisor said the Goldrich & Kest check probably was in tandem with a fund-raiser on Nov. 9, 1989, to support Wieder’s reelection in 1990 to a fourth term. Wieder, 70, a former Huntington Beach City Council member, was first elected as a supervisor in 1978.

Goldrich also said the timing of the $1,000 contribution was “a coincidence.” Goldrich’s contributions were within the $1,874 cap set by Orange County’s campaign law in November, 1989.

Wieder also sought in interviews to downplay her role a year later in the shuffling of county negotiators but acknowledged expressing concerns to Cable after Goldrich complained angrily to her.

“I would have talked, possibly have talked, to Murry Cable or to (County Administrative Officer) Ernie Schneider as to what is the progress of the negotiations going on,” Wieder said. “I would not butt into the negotiations. And they (Schneider and Cable) indicated to me that they were having problems with staff.”

Cable disputed Wieder’s account. He said he got involved in the negotiations at Wieder’s request but saw no such county staff “problem” at the time he entered the negotiations.

At some point after he took over, Cable said, he did express displeasure with one staff aide whose tone toward Goldrich & Kest was too “adversarial.”

Cable said Supervisor Wieder also told him, “You cut a good deal, or we’ll (the county) walk away from it.”

Once involved in the lease negotiations, Cable said, he tried to curtail Wieder’s involvement.

At the first negotiating meeting he headed, Cable said, he found in attendance both Wieder’s chief of staff, Sandra Ward, and Goldrich & Kest’s new lobbyist, Michelena.

“I then told Harriett I didn’t want Sandy there anymore, and I didn’t want Frank there,” Cable said, adding that he told Wieder the continued presence of her staff chief would appear inappropriate.

Wieder told The Times: “I thought it would not look well for my office to be visible there, because it would look like undue influence. And so we took arm’s length away.”

The Sunset Marina lease most recently came before the supervisors in February when, at the recommendation of Environmental Management Agency Director Ruane, Wieder and the board voted unanimously to exclude Sunset Marina from the pending consultant’s study.

The study authorized in October, 1990, was intended to determine the value of Sunset and two other county marinas and to analyze management options, including the possible selection of another firm to operate Sunset. The same vote by the supervisors directed county negotiators to seek finalization of the lease renewal with Goldrich & Kest.

The supervisors approved the study in October, with county officials acknowledging that Sunset Marina would be included. The study is being conducted at a cost to county taxpayers of up to $19,600.

Wieder told The Times that it was after the October, 1990, vote authorizing the study that she became convinced that including Sunset Marina would be unfair to Goldrich & Kest. She said it would unnecessarily slow the ongoing lease negotiations.

“I think it’s called a sense of fair play,” Wieder said. “I think it had to do with equity. . . . My interest is in making it easy for people to do business with their government. So here in the middle of their negotiations, I mean it’s like Lucky Pierre. . . . Here these people are trapped” by the emergence of the study.

Wieder also said that she thought the county’s leverage was enhanced, even though Sunset Marina was excluded from the consultant’s study. And she said the pending lease renewal will benefit the county.

“We had to get the best bang for our buck,” Wieder said. “And this was a wonderful opportunity to be able to call the shots, with renegotiating a new lease . . . to get the most benefit out of that. And the way it’s coming down, I think it’s going to demonstrate that we are.”

Times staff writer Mark Landsbaum provided computerized campaign finance research for this report.