Housing Project Manager Will Be Replaced in Wake of Inquiry : Lake View Terrace: The woman is the focus of many allegations by tenants. Firm says it decided on ouster earlier.

Federal officials investigating tenants’ charges of corruption at a Lake View Terrace housing project met Friday with an executive of the company that runs the facility, who said he will replace the controversial resident manager.

Michael Damron of Spieker Cos. Inc. said the company would cooperate with federal investigators and take other steps to remedy complaints by tenants of the privately owned, federally financed Lake View Terrace Apartments.

Damron said SCI had decided to replace the complex’s resident manager--Blanca Aquino, focus of most tenant allegations--weeks ago, well before growing racial tensions at the project prompted Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) to call for an investigation. The probe by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the federal inspector general’s office began Thursday.

SCI, which has managed the complex since March, is owned by Richard Tod Spieker of Palo Alto, also the owner of the 128-unit complex.

Aquino denies wrongdoing and a preliminary check by the company has turned up no evidence against her, Damron said.

But he said the controversy gives added impetus to the company’s earlier decision to replace her with a stronger manager. “This adds validity to what we were doing,” he said.

Federal officials are investigating allegations that Aquino took bribes from apartment seekers, bypassed a waiting list in order to place relatives in apartments and fomented racial tensions between longtime black tenants and Latino newcomers to drive out vocal black tenant leaders.

Meanwhile, in an interview at the Lake View Terrace Apartments this week, a tenant gave an account that suggested that the alleged corruption extends beyond the allegations against Aquino.

The Latina tenant, who asked not to be identified, gave The Times a detailed account of paying a $500 bribe several years ago to an employee of one of the management companies that preceded SCI.

“They told me if you pay the money, there are a lot of people on the waiting list, but you can still get in,” the woman said in Spanish. “We really needed the apartment . . . I know people who applied four years ago and are still on the waiting list.”

A co-worker told her she could pay a bribe in order to obtain an apartment quickly, the woman said. The acquaintance also set up the payoff, the woman said, escorting her to another HUD-financed housing project in the area. There, the tenant said she met an employee of a management firm in an apartment and handed over $500 in cash.

The tenant said she was notified eight days later that an apartment was available for her at Lake View Terrace apartments. She said a friend also obtained an apartment after paying off the same employee that week.

In addition, tenants said previous and current management staff rented apartments reserved for low-income tenants to people whose income exceeded the limits, and let unauthorized residents live temporarily in vacant apartments and storage areas.

HUD spokesman William Christiansen said the probe so far has concentrated on allegations against Aquino, but he said any additional reports of wrongdoing will also be investigated. Damron said his company is also looking into the allegations and said federal officials should extend their probe to previous management companies that may have been implicated.

After Friday’s meeting at SCI’s Glendale office, which also included Berman aide Rose Castaneda and the tenants council, Damron also offered to delay a planned election for a new tenants council. The leadership of the present council has criticized the election plan as an attempt to oust them for being critical of the project’s management.

Pamela Brown, a legal aid attorney advising the tenants, said she would welcome Damron’s offer to plan a new election with the involvement of an impartial organization, such as the League of Women Voters.

Nonetheless, Castaneda said she felt Damron’s attitude at the meeting was adversarial and that concerted action is required to calm potentially dangerous racial tensions at the complex. She said Berman will write a letter urging Spieker to cooperate fully with investigators.

The congressman will ask for a copy of the waiting list of applicants for the complex, she said, expressing doubts about Damron’s statement that the previous management company kept the list.

The congressman plans to tour the complex next week to speak to tenants, Castaneda said.