10:52 PM PST on Friday, February 19, 2010

By GENE GHIOTTO
The Press-Enterprise

The accusations have divided the city.

Recall backers accused a Lake Elsinore councilman of taking campaign contributions from a developer about the time he was to vote on the developer’s project and of using campaign funds to rent a car for his personal use.

The councilman, Thomas Buckley, denies any wrongdoing.

Buckley said the recall is based on fraud and lies. He accused recall backers of campaign-finance fraud and money laundering, illegally using nonresidents to collect signatures on the recall petitions and offering free drinks and bowling to patrons of Trevi Entertainment Center if they signed the petitions.

“The reason it (qualified) is because they bought signatures,” Buckley said.

The Riverside County district attorney’s office is investigating whether anything illegal transpired in the recall effort and served search warrants at the home of the recall leader and her former employer and at her former employer’s business.

Voters now must decide Tuesday whether to recall Buckley, and, if they do, who should replace him.

Also on the ballot are Orange County sheriff’s Deputy Phil Mendoza, real estate broker Steve Manos and restaurateur Jimmy Flores.

Specifically, recall proponents accused Buckley of arranging a city Redevelopment Agency purchase of 7 acres in February 2008 from TSG Waterview, a Shopoff Group company, for $4.1 million while he was chairman of the agency board. Shopoff has contributed to Buckley’s campaigns.

The land was purchased after the city negotiated with Shopoff and on a unanimous vote of the agency board.

“It was legal, proper and ethical,” Buckley said.

In seeking to oust Buckley, the recall group listed the sale as its main objection, saying Shopoff bought the land in March 2007 for $2.5 million, then resold it to the agency a few months later at a significant profit.

“It’s almost like Shopoff had a crystal ball,” Manos said. “It’s peculiar to me that as all this transpired, the world changed over a seven-month period.”

Manos, who is campaigning to replace Buckley, said he has gone through documents and also found problems.

“I examined the circumstances surrounding the property transaction and the accusations about it,” Manos said. “Based on what I saw, there are several curious actions that happened. I didn’t find anything illegal, but if you accept money and don’t disclose it, there’s trouble.”

Contributions questioned

Manos said Buckley brought the land proposal to the agency after receiving campaign contributions from The Shopoff Group totaling more than $3,000 from March 2007 to October 2007.

Buckley denied receiving campaign contributions in return for proposing the purchase to the board. The contributions came as a result of his annual campaign golf tournament, which takes place in the spring, Buckley said.

“That accusation is absurd,” Buckley said. “If the golf tournament was in October, that’s when contributions would come in.”

Buckley said he tried earlier to persuade the city to buy the land, which is between City Park, and Swich and Matich Park, when the city could have paid $2.5 million for it. But the city was not interested, so it was sold to Shopoff.

Later, Buckley said, Shopoff and the previous owner approached the city about purchasing the property.

Genie Kelley, who was on the council and agency board at the time, said recall backers are wrong in their accusation against Buckley. She agreed with Buckley that the city was not interested in the parcel at first. But the land eventually became a factor in the plan to redevelop the downtown area.

“Then that piece of property became really valuable and important to us,” said Kelley.

Kelley added that the recall proponents need to look at what was going on then.

“Property values still were on the increase,” Kelley said. “It had appreciated greatly. We needed to purchase it.”

Manos, though, said real estate values started to decline by late 2007 and he believes that the city could have gotten a better price for the land.

“He had to have known things weren’t great for the real estate market,” Manos said. “The big question wasn’t when the bubble would burst but how bad it would affect the rest of the market.”

Rental car

On the rental car issue, Buckley acknowledged in 2008 that he used campaign funds in 2006 and 2007 to rent a car. At the time, Buckley said he did not own a car because the one he had was totaled in an accident.

Buckley said the majority of his driving has been political, campaign or government-related travel. While campaign funds can be used to pay for rental expenses, the use of such funds is barred for personal use.

“I don’t drive to an office. I work out of my house,” Buckley said. “When I’m driving more than 20 miles, I’m driving for the city.”

Kelley questioned why the recall committee did not file a formal complaint with authorities accusing Buckley of wrongdoing.

“As far as I know, there has never been a formal complaint against him by the committee,” Kelley said.

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