McDonald’s Embroiled in Charity Dispute : Aid: Camp Good Times founder Pepper Edmiston says she was dumped from office for defying burger giant’s wishes.

As executive director of Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, Pepper Edmiston was a terrific fund-raiser.

But the Pacific Palisades woman who in 1982 founded Camp Good Times for children with cancer, expanded it throughout Southern California and later helped persuade McDonald’s to join her, now concedes that it may have been a mistake ever to have become involved with the hamburger giant.

Edmiston contends that the program’s board dumped her from her $75,000-a-year job in January after she defied an order not to let children from the camp program take part in the inauguration of President Clinton. She says she was told by a public relations official representing McDonald’s that because the company was cool to the idea of health care reform it did not want its Golden Arches associated with Clinton.

As a result, several dozen wealthy donors who want Edmiston reinstated have sued the camp board, contending that their donations meant for the camp program are being used unlawfully to support Ronald McDonald Houses, another of the company’s charities.

McDonald’s officials vigorously deny that they had anything to do with Edmiston’s dismissal, and insist that the company has nothing against the President.

“That’s absolute nonsense,” said McDonald’s vice president Dick Starmann. “We don’t even have a position about health care. We’re in the restaurant business.”

The lawyer for the donors offers a different view.

“Pepper didn’t play ball with McDonald’s and this is what happens,” said attorney Robert Horner. “This is all about making money and selling cheeseburgers.”

Edmiston, who is the daughter of Beverly Hills mayor Max Salter and whose husband, Joe Edmiston, is executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, is regarded as a hero among many of the program’s donors.

She started the program, which still does not have a permanent home, after leukemia was diagnosed in her oldest son, David. No children’s camp at the time would take a child with cancer.

She had help. Her cousin’s husband, actor Dustin Hoffman, has contributed money and connections. Michael Jackson has been a supporter, as has actress Sally Struthers.

The program so impressed the late Michael Landon that he built a two-part episode of “Highway to Heaven” around it. Edmiston has promoted the camp program on a host of TV shows, including a “Today Show” appearance during the inauguration trip.

“In many people’s minds, Pepper Edmiston is the camp (program),” said donor Joe Sinay, a retired furniture executive.

Even her critics praise her for bringing in most of the $10.5 million raised by the charity, which provides outdoor retreats for children with cancer and their siblings. McDonald’s has contributed $1.3 million since it became involved in 1984.

“Pepper was a fabulous fund-raiser, but she alienated members of the board over a long period of time,” said Laurie Bernhard, chairwoman of the board. “The growth and success of the camp dictated that we turn to someone with better managerial skills.”

Bernhard said the timing of Edmiston’s dismissal during her trip to Washington was purely coincidental and had nothing to do with McDonald’s or the inauguration.

About two dozen children attended the inaugural, and one of them--12-year-old Dorina Fletcher of Bakersfield--walked hand-in-hand with the President-elect across the Memorial Bridge after a celebration at the Lincoln Memorial.

The board voted unanimously on Jan. 30 to dismiss Edmiston during a review of the charity’s operations that had been scheduled for several months, Bernhard said. About a third of its 37 members were absent, she said.

“I can tell you that McDonald’s had absolutely zero input” into the decision, Bernhard said.

Edmiston gives a different account.

She said that after the Dec. 16 board meeting, at which she announced that the camp program had been invited to take part in the inauguration festivities, Bernhard told her that the trip was off because McDonald’s did not like the idea. Bernhard said she never told Edmiston not to take the trip.

In a letter to the board on Dec. 22, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, McDonald’s marketing executive Anita Faunce expressed concern about the trip.

“We strongly recommend that you DO NOT participate,” Faunce wrote, referring to a company policy against McDonald’s-affiliated charities becoming involved in partisan political events.

Officials at McDonald’s corporate headquarters in Oak Park, Ill., have since said the letter was a mistake.

“We don’t advise (the board), we don’t give them input and we didn’t give them direction as it relates to this lady’s termination,” said Starmann, the McDonald’s vice president.

Faunce declined to be interviewed for this story.

“I was shocked,” Edmiston said. “A partisan political event? The presidential inauguration? I mean we’ve had Ronald and Nancy Reagan visiting our camp (program) on at least four occasions. It made no sense.”

Edmiston says she learned why she was not to participate in a December phone conversation with an official of a public relations firm that represents 400 McDonald’s franchise holders in Southern California.

She said Bill Kolberg of Bob Thomas & Associates told her that “if the campers walked with Clinton it would be publicly perceived that McDonald’s was in support of Clinton and therefore his health package.”

“He said McDonald’s didn’t want to pay for health insurance for its lower-paid workers because it would cost its operators too much money,” Edmiston said.”

“I said this was ridiculous thinking because his health package had not even been written or debated, that Clinton was always eating at McDonald’s and gave it such good press, and that it was a stupid way to deal with a President,” Edmiston said.

Edmiston quoted Kolberg as saying McDonald’s had no control over whether the President walked into one of its restaurants but that it did have control over the camp’s participation.

In an interview, Kolberg denied the remarks.

“I don’t know what fiction magazine she got this from,” he said. “But none of this transpired.”

Edmiston calls the reasons given for her firing “bogus,” noting that she was given a $15,000 pay raise in 1991.

Her supporters cite the episode as another example of McDonald’s meddling with the charity since lending its name to the operation.

Some were upset in 1989 after a 200-acre ranch in Santa Barbara County owned by the widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc--and which had been offered as a gift to serve as the charity’s permanent home--was instead sold for $6 million.

Joan Kroc withdrew the offer after county officials refused to issue permits for the camp to use the property for more than 81 days a year, prompting the charity’s board to pursue other sites.

Critics said McDonald’s arbitrarily held out for more days than the county would accept, knowing the deal would fall through, and then signaled to the charity that it should give up the fight or risk not being reimbursed for the more than $500,000 it had already spent to acquire the permits.

McDonald’s supporters say Kroc and McDonald’s did all they could to make the offer work, and praise the fast-food giant for its devotion to the camp program.

“They’ve been more than generous,” said Dr. Stuart Siegel, a pediatrician and a longtime member of the board. “They’ve gotten some positive publicity, but they’ve also assumed the risk of negative publicity, which this episode shows.”