Politics Divide Santa Ana Leaders

In their own ways, the two politicians champion Santa Ana and its mostly Latino population. But their conflicting visions divide the community.

Mayor Miguel A. Pulido sees a Santa Ana of growth and prosperity, an emerging center of mainstream commerce and industry. But former school board member Nativo V. Lopez sees a Santa Ana of simple aspirations, of disenfranchised immigrants struggling to make ends meet in a new homeland.

There is little compromise between the two visions and little collegiality between the two men. Political tension between them dates back 20 years and continues to rise.

Two years ago, Lopez sued Pulido, alleging the mayor had not fully declared his business interests on economic disclosure forms that California public officials file annually. This year, Pulido campaigned for the successful recall of Lopez from the Santa Ana Unified School District board.

Lopez’s lawsuit against Pulido is scheduled next month in Orange County Superior Court.

“The public has the right to know what the mayor is doing, what his business interests are and how those affect the way he votes,” said Lopez, executive officer of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, a nonprofit immigrant-rights organization that has also filed lawsuits in the past over housing and redevelopment in Santa Ana. “To me, it’s really not personal -- this is something of community interest.”

Pulido declined comment for this article, referring calls to his attorneys. One of them, Bradley Hertz, wrote in a court document that Lopez’s lawsuit is “an incomprehensible kitchen sink effort to prosecute and harass the city of Santa Ana and its mayor, Miguel Pulido, for a variety of ill-defined and unintelligible alleged wrongs.”

Pulido, 47, is a native of Mexico City who has been on the City Council since 1986 and mayor since 1994. He tends to focus on polishing the often-tarnished image of a city surrounded by the pristine suburbs of Orange County. A conservative on immigration issues, he has played host to Presidents Bush, Clinton and Mexico’s Vicente Fox in Santa Ana but local community leaders say they do not see enough of him.

By comparison, Lopez is one of the most vociferous voices for immigrants in a city where 75% of the residents speak Spanish. Lopez, 51, a native of Boyle Heights, supports bilingual education and legal status for undocumented immigrants.

Lopez said he helped Pulido get elected in 1986 with a band of immigrant campaign workers. But Lopez said he turned against Pulido after Pulido sent a political flier denouncing undocumented immigrants as the cause of crime in the city.

The philosophical rift between the two Latino leaders is the source of much debate in Santa Ana.

“I think at the very base of the conflict is the question: how do we as Americans interact with each other?” said Paul Giles, a community activist who operates an Internet chat group that focuses on Santa Ana issues. “Mr. Lopez’s answer is: ‘My ethnic group is more important than anything and I will do anything to get stuff for my ethnic group.’ Mr. Pulido would say: ‘We are all Americans and all have to work together.’ ”

Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Michael Metzler supported the recall against Lopez and says his lawsuit “is a merely a game of power that is being played. Mr. Lopez is now trying to use the courts to regain some of his lost power. To me, this is a personal matter. The court will determine if that is in fact the case.”

Lopez said he hopes the lawsuit will force the mayor -- who for years claimed little more than a family muffler shop as his income source -- to disclose his other business and property interests.

“He has been voting where he has conflicts of interest and he has not disclosed that as is required by law,” Lopez said.

“We want to hold him accountable as we would any other politician.”

Critics have long speculated about Pulido’s personal earnings, especially given his purchase in 1999 of a $915,000 house in Santa Ana. The mayor’s position is a part-time job with a $200-a-month salary.

“There’s something out there because he can’t make that kind of money selling mufflers unless he is selling 24-carat mufflers,” said downtown merchant Sam Romero.

Elected officials annually must report their economic interests in their city and within two miles of it on a form submitted to the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Law experts say Pulido apparently violated state law by omitting businesses in or near Santa Ana.

Disclosure “is supposed to provide the public with an idea of what his interests are in the jurisdiction. If he doesn’t disclose he has an interest, it’s hard to know if his decisions are affected by them,” said Chuck Bell, whose private law practice specializes in conflict-of-interest cases.

Documents from the Fair Political Practices Commission show that in 1999 Pulido teamed with developer Kris Kakkar to build senior housing and a hotel a quarter mile outside the city’s border. The same year, Lopez’s economic-interest statement listed only his muffler shop and a Santa Ana rental property. He changed his declaration in August 2000 in a handwritten scrawl that showed the two additional addresses without further explanation. In 2001 -- after Lopez filed his lawsuit -- Pulido identified the addresses as the housing project and hotel, according to Santa Ana City Atty. Joseph Fletcher.

“It is not black and white about what had to be reported. There are some ambiguities in the regulations that sometimes trip people up,” Fletcher said. “It’s not a foregone conclusion that just because you co-own a piece of property with a person who has other properties that you have a conflict because of your partner’s investments when those other properties come up.”

But the questions raised by Lopez were enough to interest the Fair Political Practices Commission, which is investigating Pulido’s annual economic interests declarations. That investigation has been put on hold until the lawsuit is over, according to a March 2002 letter written by the commission to Lopez’s attorney, Chris Nicoll.

The commission would not comment on the investigation, citing its policy not to discuss individual cases.

A violation can be a fine or misdemeanor, but most often, experts say, it is resolved without further action after the commission writes a letter. Although the official would not have to step down, an official convicted of a misdemeanor would not be able to run for office again for four years.

“The whole purpose is not to determine how wealthy a person is, but whether they face a conflict. That means reporting interest in real property in the city, investments in companies that do business in the city and anything in the two-mile area around the city,” said Bob Stern, president of the nonprofit Center for Governmental Studies and the first and former general counsel of the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Nicoll said that at trial he will introduce evidence of other economic interests held by the mayor, including a partnership between Pulido and Kakkar that sold homes in Corona in 2002 and which listed an address within two miles of Santa Ana.

Charles McClung, Pulido’s attorney, said that partnership did not need to be reported because the address was used only for mailing purposes.

In 2001, Pulido for the first time listed as an economic interest Sol Distributing International, also known as International Distribution Mechanical PA of Santa Ana, a partnership among Pulido, his father, Miguel Armando Pulido, and Richard O’Neill, one of the most prominent developers in Orange County. But the partnership had been formed in 1998, according to the secretary of state’s office. The company exports catalytic converters to Mexico, said McClung.

McClung said it was possible the partnership was not active until later.

City Council meeting minutes show Pulido abstained on votes on contracts but later participated in votes involving the same contractors without explanation in the minutes why he was abstaining. City Atty. Fletcher said he has advised council members to “identify the conflict and leave the dais. That has been the recommended practice.”

McClung said that some discrepancies involved the mayor taking precautions about possible conflicts of interests that were later determined not to exist.

Told of the inconsistencies, Stern of the nonprofit Center for Governmental Studies said, “Why is he abstaining on [the vote about] a property one time and not another? It doesn’t make sense. He should not abstain on one occasion and not another. The voters need to know what he is doing and why.”