Swap-Meet Issue Splits Paramount Candidates

PARAMOUNT —  The City Council’s decision last year to levy a daily tax on the swap meet in Paramount has spilled over into this year’s council election in which seven candidates, including two incumbents, are battling for three seats.

Councilman Charles R. Weldon, the only council member up for reelection who voted for the tax, said the election is a fight between himself and the swap-meet operator, Modern Development Co.

“The issue in the election is easily defined. It is swap-meet people versus me,” said Weldon, 53, who is seeking a third four-year term.

“This is a campaign over whether the swap meet will elect the council, or the people,” Weldon said.

Agreeing with Weldon on the tax are challengers Manuel Guillen and Henry Harkema.

But four of the candidates, including incumbent John A. Mies and challengers Ted J. Mosier, Rich DeBie and Mike Pete Delivuk said they believe that Weldon is merely using the swap-meet issue to draw attention to himself.

Weldon, mayor of the five-member council, charges that Mosier, DeBie and Delivuk are “swap-meet” candidates, “running apparently as a slate” to get rid of him.

The three challengers denied that they are a slate but have “had signs made up with our three names on them to save money,” DeBie said.

Financial disclosure statements submitted to the city clerk’s office on Thursday, the last filing date for statements before the April 8 election, show no candidate receiving money directly from Modern Development.

However, Vaughan Herrick, general manager of Modern Development, has said the company probably would contribute to the campaigns of Mies, Mosier, Delivuk and DeBie.

Modern Development, which operates the swap meet on its 27-acre Paramount Drive-In, has made no secret that it would like to see Weldon defeated. The company is also behind the newly formed Citizens for a Better Paramount, which is campaigning against Weldon.

The latest financial statements show a $10,425 loan had been made to DeBie by Citizens for a Better Paramount. DeBie has spent $14,722--the most money in the campaign.

The records show that for the campaign Delivuk has raised $5,200, Guillen $3,087 and Mosier $2,032. Weldon, who said he does not accept contributions of any kind, has spent $3,798.

Mies and Harkema have not filed campaign finance reports; instead they have signed statements saying that they would not spend or receive more than $500 in the campaign, City Clerk Kathie Mendoza said.

Weldon said Modern Development is trying to oust him because he voted last June 4 to tax the swap meet and its vendors.

The council requires that vendors pay $1 per day and that Modern Development pay a business license fee of $1 per day for each vendor.

The collections will amount to about $365,000 a year and are needed to replace the loss of federal revenue-sharing funds for 1985-86, a result of budget cuts in Washington, according to city documents.

Voting along with Weldon for the tax were Councilman Gerald A. Mulrooney and Councilwoman Esther Caldwell, who are not up for reelection. Councilmen Case W. Boogaard() and Mies opposed the tax.

Boogaard’s is the third seat being contested. He decided not to run after eight years in office, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

In his efforts to see Weldon defeated, Modern Development’s Herrick has accused him of misuse of public funds, saying Weldon is attaching to his campaign literature a city business card that identifies himself as mayor.

The charge came in a press release from Citizens for A Better Paramount. In the release, Herrick says Weldon is engaged in a “zealous attempt to retain control of the city.” Herrick said he is the secretary of the group, which “was formed to oppose Mr. Weldon.” The telephone number on the release is Modern Development’s.

The press release implied that Weldon was receiving the cards free of charge from the city, then using them in his campaign.

“This is a blatant misuse of taxpayer funds for personal gain. We feel cheated out of our tax dollars by this lawyer who should know better,” Herrick says in the release.

Weldon emphatically denied the charge, saying he had ordered 1,000 business cards from the city about three weeks ago, for which he paid.

(Weldon paid $83 for the cards, which were delivered to him on March 14, according to a city official who has access to the records but declined to be named.)

“These people are out to get me,” said Weldon, a lawyer with an office in Norwalk who specializes in personal injury cases. Weldon was first elected to the council 1978.

“I’m the mayor. When I talk to people, am I not supposed to tell them that?” Weldon said, adding that the operators of the swap meet are conducting “a giant smear campaign against me.”

Mies, who is seeking his fifth term, said, “Weldon is beating a dead horse” with the swap-meet issue. Mies, 72, has been on the council for 16 years.

“The question of my health is the most important issue because I’ve heard talk that I can’t serve,” said Mies, who had both of his kidneys fail in December, 1981.

He undergoes kidney dialysis three times a week, five hours at a time, said his physician, Dr. Samai Khwaja.

“I’m fit to serve. I never miss a council meeting or study session,” said Mies, who owns mortuaries in Paramount, Downey and Bellflower.

Mosier, 65, who served for 16 years on the council before being defeated in 1984, said he also believed the tax issue is overblown.

Mosier said he would run on his years of service to the city.

“I can contribute as I have in the past to the city. Many of the successful programs over the years, the Redevelopment Agency, the consolidation of the numerous small water companies, was the direct result of my hard work,” said Mosier, owner of Ted Mosier Wholesale Inc., a floor-coverings business in Paramount.

DeBie, 64, who served on the council from 1966 until he chose not to run again in 1978, said he believed that educating young people against the dangers of drugs is a top priority.

“I think a professional person should be hired to go into the school district and teach students as young as the third grade about the dangers of drugs,” DeBie said.

“I don’t have an ax to grind against anybody,” said DeBie, who owns Apollo Plumbing Co. in Paramount.

DeBie and Delivuk said that if they had been on the council when the swap-meet tax was considered they would have voted against it, while Mosier said he would have perhaps negotiated for a smaller tax.

Delivuk, 60, a self-employed accountant specializing in personal income taxes, has never run for office before. He said he thought the swap-meet tax is discriminatory and should not have been approved.

“The swap meet is just one of some 2,500 business licenses in town and should not have been singled out,” Delivuk said.

He said that if he is elected he would concentrate on not raising taxes. He said he would review the budget to determine what could be cut.

Guillen and Harkema said they believed that the swap-meet tax is the top issue.

“I agree with the way the council handled the matter. The fees were needed. The city is losing revenue sharing,” said Guillen, 51, chairman of the Planning Commission.

Guillen, who has served on the commission for 14 years, is running for the council for the second time. He first ran in 1982, finishing fifth with 1,109 votes in a field of seven candidates.

“The swap meet is the problem because they are not paying their fair share of taxes. People also complain that the swap meet causes congestion,” said Harkema, another first-time office-seeker, who retired 10 years ago as a supervisor with the Paramount Water District.

“Politics is not my dish but I was more or less talked into running. I have the time,” said Harkema, who did not reveal his age but said, “I’m a senior citizen.”

Modern Development immediately made known its opposition to the council’s decision to impose the taxes. The company, which had been paying the city about $45,000 in annual business fees before the tax was imposed, refused to pay the tax.

As a result, the city sued the company on July 18. So far, the court battle has cost the city $152,100 in attorney fees, City Manager Bill Holt said.

The company filed a countersuit, seeking $5 million from the city, Mulrooney, Caldwell, Weldon, City Manager Holt and then-Finance Director David Spellman, said Robert Bower, lawyer for Modern Development.

“We are suing for violation of civil rights, (attempting to) drive the company out of business and (for) punitive damages,” Bower said.

The company has shown its “good faith” by collecting the taxes, which total about $238,000, and placing the money in a bank account, Bower said.

On March 10 in Los Angeles Superior Court, the city was granted a preliminary injunction ordering the company to turn over to the city the money it has withheld, said Joel Grossman, an attorney who represents the city.

Council members are paid $200 a month, plus $30 for each time they meet as the Redevelopment Agency.

There are 10,700 registered voters in the 4.8-square mile city of nearly 40,000.