Inquiry Into Vote on Farm Contract Begins : Jobs: The D.A. is investigating whether a former Employment Training Panel member from Oxnard had a conflict of interest.

The Ventura County district attorney’s office began an investigation Tuesday to determine if a former state Employment Training Panel member from Oxnard violated conflict-of-interest laws in August when he voted for a $2-million contract to train Ventura County farm workers.

The inquiry was launched after The Times reported Sunday that Robert Munoz, in voting for the contract, also helped approve a $592,000 subcontract for a company partly owned by a longtime Munoz associate who apparently leases office space from him.

State law prohibits members of state boards from participating in decisions that would affect a source of their income, Special Assistant Dist. Atty. Donald D. Coleman said.

If Munoz was the landlord of longtime associate Larry Owens when Munoz voted for the state contract Aug. 24, “then he definitely had a financial interest in the awarding of the contract, and there’s no question the gentleman should not have been acting on it,” Coleman said.

He said he will attempt to determine the circumstances surrounding Munoz’s vote and whether the district attorney has jurisdiction to prosecute.

Coleman said he will check with the state attorney general’s office and the Fair Political Practices Commission about jurisdiction and refer the case to them if that is appropriate.

James Bratt, interim executive director of the Employment Training Panel, said last week that he will ask the political practices commission for a ruling on whether Munoz broke the law.

Munoz, 59, who was removed from the panel last month by Gov. George Deukmejian, has repeatedly declined comment on the vote and said Tuesday that he did not have time to discuss it.

But state disclosure statements filed by Munoz show that he rented space at an Oxnard Boulevard office building to Owens at least during 1988 and 1989. Munoz, whose insurance agency is in the same building, earned more than $10,000 each year by renting it out, he reported.

Munoz did not file the required statement of economic interests after leaving office last month, so it is not known if he was still Owens’ landlord when he voted on the state contract that assisted Owens.

Records show that Owens is president and part-owner of Golden State School, which is to provide 64,000 hours of English-language training under the $2-million state contract awarded to the Ventura County Agricultural Assn. in August. Owens is also the principal owner of Golden State Employer Services, which rented an office from Munoz at least through 1989.

In a recent interview, Owens said his landlord at the Oxnard Boulevard office building is Ventura County National Bank, not Munoz.

Court records show that Ventura County National Bank began to collect rents owed to Munoz in 1988 and to distribute the money to his creditors as part of an $850,000 settlement of a lawsuit filed by Blue Shield of California, which contended that Munoz’s insurance agency had kept fees that it collected for Blue Shield.

A lawyer involved in the Blue Shield case said last week that the rent-collection arrangement is still in place.

Owens and Munoz also worked together as directors of the Job Training Policy Council, formerly known as the Private Industry Council of Ventura County, during the early 1980s and from 1988 until last month, when Owens resigned, according to the agency.

Comments by Munoz at the Oct. 4 meeting of the job training council, a federal worker-training program, also indicate that Owens may have been paying rent to Munoz as recently as this month.

At that meeting, the council--concerned about the relationship between Munoz and Owens--changed its rules to prohibit council members who have a financial interest in a contract from discussing it with the rest of the board, agency officials confirmed.

In response to the rules change, an angry Munoz threatened to sue his colleagues and complained bitterly that the new rule had denied him his right to speak on a $497,730 contract awarded to Golden State Employer Services, said Francisco de Leon, council executive director.

Council member William La Perch said he proposed the change because Munoz had distributed a flattering financial analysis of Golden State Employer Services at a previous meeting.

“I was able to investigate before our Oct. 4 meeting and found the figures were not correct,” La Perch said.

De Leon said federal law allows job training council directors to receive contracts from the council as long as they abstain from voting on them.

As a member of the state Employment Training Panel, Munoz shepherded the $2-million Ventura County Agricultural Assn. contract quickly through the state bureaucracy this year.

He led an effort that moved the project from 335th place on a waiting list to first when approved amid criticism that it was a subsidy for big farmers, state documents show.

The Ventura proposal to cross-train field hands to pick more than one crop was given fast-track treatment by the panel after Munoz persuaded his colleagues in May to make farm projects a top priority. The next month, Munoz declared that the only agricultural applicant was the Ventura County association.

Two months later, despite serious concerns by its staff and strenuous, unprecedented objections by the state Employment Development Department, the panel approved the Ventura project 5 to 2.

Since then, both competing growers and farm-worker advocates have said the training program is a sham that benefits growers and consultants who are paid to implement it, but does little for the laborers themselves.

Supporters of the contract say it will enable farmers to train laborers to pick or tend many crops and help the workers secure stable, year-round employment in Ventura County.