SANTA ANA : Candidate Defends Hiring of Detective

City Council candidate Coween Dickerson Tuesday defended the actions of her former campaign treasurer in hiring a private detective to trail Councilman Miguel A. Pulido Jr. to find out whether he lives in the city.

But Dickerson said at a press conference that she had accepted the resignation of the treasurer, Salvador Juarez, saying he should have informed her of his actions.

Dickerson, a self-employed business analyst, said that Juarez was trying to “act responsibly” in attempting to determine whether Pulido actually lives in Santa Ana.

“I don’t think he did anything wrong,” Dickerson said of Juarez, “but he should have asked me. I would have told him not to.”

Dickerson said that Juarez offered to resign last Thursday and that Zeke Hernandez, who lost to Pulido in the 1986 council race, will be her new treasurer.

Hiring a detective, Dickerson said, was a “waste of money.” She asserted that it is common knowledge that Pulido lived outside Santa Ana. Dickerson, who has made this a campaign issue, added that none of her campaign money was used for the investigation.

Pulido maintains that he has lived in Santa Ana in a rented room since 1986, when he first ran for office. He described Juarez’s resignation as “too little and too late.” Dickerson and her supporters, he said, were making Juarez the “fall guy” for the “mistake of hiring an investigator.”

“If she can’t control the activity of her own treasurer,” Pulido said, “how could she purport to be a council person who’s going to have a whole city under her responsibility?”

Private investigator William Holland of Fountain Valley said Juarez hired him in August to determine whether Pulido was actually living in Fullerton at his family’s home before moving to a house on Garnsey Street in Santa Ana last month. Holland said he has submitted his report to the district attorney’s office. He said that Juarez paid him with his own checks.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade said the office is reviewing the report.