Struiksma Says Auditor to Blame in Expense Flap

Moving quickly to stem any political damage to his mayoral campaign, acting Mayor Ed Struiksma Thursday took to the airwaves to blame the San Diego City Auditor’s office for advising him and an aide to use fictitious numbers on an expense form for a 1984 East Coast trip.

Later in the day, Struiksma heaped criticism on mayoral opponent and Councilman Bill Cleator, who called for a special closed-door session of the City Council next week to investigate Struiksma’s claim about the expenses: “Today’s proposal by Councilman Cleator for a closed session of the City Council should be called exactly what it is--an attempt by Judge Cleator to muster a kangaroo court to hang Ed Struiksma.

“The entire premise of this attempt to go behind closed doors is false. There are no allegations against the city auditor. Ed Ryan has become a pawn whose job is being placed in danger in order to serve the mayoral ambitions of Mr. Cleator,” Struiksma said.

Ryan strongly denied that his office ever approved substituting false numbers on a city expense form.

At issue are Struiksma’s expenses for an October, 1984, trip to New York and Boston--in particular a claim for a $65 dinner--which are being reviewed by the district attorney’s office to see if a criminal investigation is warranted. Ryan referred the charges to the district attorney’s office earlier this week after a newspaper reported that a city redevelopment officer had paid for the New York dinner which Struiksma had claimed on his expense form.

At the insistance of his campaign planners, Struiksma canceled several appointments Thursday morning to make an 11 a.m. appearance on a KSDO radio talk show hosted by Dave Dawson to assert that his aide, Ellen Capozzoli, claimed the $65 meal after someone in Ryan’s office advised her to “reconstruct” the expenses for the city business trip. Struiksma had lost all of his receipts.

“Between our office and the auditor’s office, they knew those numbers were not correct,” Struiksma told Dawson’s listeners, adding: “When we finally submitted that (expense) form, we indicated to them that these numbers down there did not have any basis in fact.”

Ryan, however, disputed that version in an interview with The Times.

“I can’t find anybody that talked to Ellen. I asked the people that were involved in the process and they don’t remember having any conversation with either Ed or Ellen. And I can’t imagine, in all honesty, that anyone would ever give such advice from an auditor’s office. I can’t imagine it,” he said.

The budding financial controversy took on added political implications Thursday when Cleator issued a memo to council colleagues asking for a special closed session next week to question Ryan about Struiksma’s statements.

Calling Struiksma’s statements “allegations of misconduct” against Ryan, Cleator wrote: “If this stunning charge is true, then the council must call for the immediate dismissal of the city auditor, Mr. Ed Ryan.”

But in a strongly worded statement Thursday night, Struiksma called Cleator’s action “a thinly disguised attempt to interject mayoral politics into internal city affairs. Cleator’s proposal is to take action against Ed Struiksma, not Ed Ryan. The target is Ed Struiksma, not Ed Ryan, and from now on, the target will shoot back.”

Don Harrison, Cleator’s campaign coordinator, said that a closed session is a proper way for the council to handle a personnel matter and that other council members as well as the city attorney will be present.

“Ed is apparently very, very concerned about the outcome of this hearing so he is attempting to inoculate the public against the possible finding that Ed Ryan did nothing wrong,” said Harrison.

The flap over Struiksma’s expenses comes at a time when City Hall is tightening its belt on business expenses. Ryan said that as of Saturday he will begin enforcing new regulations that discontinue the use of city-issued credit cards for council members and top city officials. The new rules also set spending limits for business meals and require receipts to be submitted for meals over $15.

Such was not the case when Struiksma took his trip to the Urban Land Institute in Boston between Oct. 17-21, 1984. Before Struiksma attended the conference, he took a side trip to New York on Oct. 15-17 for which he later billed the city, city records show.

The total cost for the Boston-New York trip was $2,386 and Struiksma received a $645 cash advance for the trip, records show.

City officials say they are concerned about a $65 dinner claimed by Struiksma on Oct. 16 in New York. The San Diego Daily Transcript reported Monday that Struiksma never paid for the meal, but was the dinner guest that night of Jan Anton, a board member of the Centre City Development Corporation.

Anton, a member of Cleator’s mayoral finance committee and a senior marketing representative for the commercial real estate firm Iliff Thorn & Co., told the newspaper that Struiksma joined him, his wife and a Great American First Savings Bank executive for the dinner, which cost more than $200. Anton said he paid for the meal. Anton, who was out of town Thursday, did not return a telephone call to his office.

Struiksma Thursday conceded that Anton paid for the meal. “We went to dinner and I’m sure he picked up the tab,” said the mayoral candidate. “I don’t know if I spent any money the rest of the evening.”

But Struiksma blamed the auditor’s office, not himself, for the mistake. He said that immediately upon returning from the 1984 trip, he realized that he had lost an envelope containing all his receipts.

Struiksma said he delayed 30 days before filing his expense reports because he was waiting for copies of his American Express charges, which reflected his expenses for hotel and air travel. But when it came to accounting for the $645 cash advance, which was used for meals, cabs and other items, Struiksma said his office was at a loss.

Capozzoli said she called the auditor’s office and explained the problem, but was advised Struiksma should “reconstruct” the expenses by memory, since receipts were not required for documentation at the time.

“I told them it was impossible . . . I told them the best I could do would not be good enough,” she said. When an auditor’s staff member persisted, Capozzoli said, she warned that he “couldn’t expect that the numbers I had had any basis in fact.”

Capozzoli said Thursday she could not recall the name of the person she talked to in the auditor’s office.

Ryan disputed this account and said Thursday he has been unable to find anyone who gave Capozzoli such advice. “I not only can’t find anybody, I can’t imagine anybody doing it,” he said.

According to Struiksma, it was Capozzoli who filled in the fictitious figures for meals. The councilman said he signed the expense form verifying the truthfulness of the charges without looking at the line items but assuring himself that it covered $600 of the cash advance.

The auditor’s office processed the claim and the matter was forgotten. But late last year, a controversy erupted over allegations that Councilman Uvaldo Martinez and his top aide abused the use of a city credit card. While reviewing expense files, Ryan said he was troubled by the lack of adequate documentation for Struiksma’s New York trip.

Ryan said at his request, Struiksma contacted the hotels and obtained detailed copies of the bills. He also said he questioned Struiksma on three dinners, ranging from $65 to $86.81. The auditor said he wanted to see if someone else ate on city expense because the charges seemed out of line with other meals.

Struiksma said he offered to pay back the $600 advance. “The response was, ‘No, it’s obvious you were in New York. It’s obvious you were in Boston on city business. Obviously you incurred expenses. We don’t want it,’ ” Struiksma said on Dawson’s show Thursday. Ryan confirmed that he turned down Struiksma’s offer to repay the money.

Ryan then dropped his inquiry after the district attorney’s office contacted him and said it, too, was looking at the Struiksma trip. At that point, district attorney investigators found nothing incriminating in Struiksma’s paper work, Steve Casey, a district attorney spokesman said Thursday.

So, the issue was put to rest until Monday, when the San Diego Transcript article was published and Ryan called for a meeting with Struiksma and City Attorney John Witt. On Witt’s advice Tuesday, Ryan said he referred the matter to the district attorney’s office for another review.

Casey said he expects the review to be completed well before the Feb. 25 mayoral election. He said investigators will wait until Anton returns from an out-of-town trip next week to interview him.

“We intend to complete it rapidly,” Casey said about the review. “I don’t know what twists and turns this may take, but it seems rather straightforward at this point.”

On Thursday, Struiksma wasted no time in trying to blunt any public relations damage the controversy might have caused. He canceled a 9:30 a.m. meeting with apartment owners to huddle with campaign consultants Dave Lewis and Jim Johnston, who arranged for the appearance on the Dawson talk show.

“I feel very confident that we relied on the best information on how to deal with the situation,” said Struiksma. “It is obviously a very perplexing thing to happen at this point in time. I just sometimes wonder after everything has happened, why we are here in a middle of a campaign and now it has surfaced again,” he said, alluding to possible political motivation for the episode.

Lewis said Struiksma’s radio appearance was arranged so that the acting mayor could take the offensive in the controversy. “This is just a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense where he is being hung out on it,” said Lewis. “We’re not going to stand for it.”

While Struiksma was trying to diminish the controversy via live radio, his political rival Cleator was taking steps to examine it further. He issued his memo asking for the special session and later said he would take disciplinary action against Ryan if the auditor actually told Struiksma to “reconstruct” his bills.

“I’d fire him the next day,” said Cleator.

“If he in fact told somebody to go make up a bunch of bills so that he can justify something that he already authorized payment for, to me, that’s dishonest,” said Cleator. “As a taxpayer, I’m outraged. As his employer, I am angry.”

Cleator said later he has not talked to Anton about the $65 meal. He said his call for a closed inquiry was not a political move designed to hurt Struiksma.

Ryan said he is not worried about the possible inquiry. “I haven’t done anything wrong so I have nothing to worry about,” he said.

Times staff writer Barry M. Horstman contributed to this story.