Carson Council OKs, Then Rescinds Land Purchase for Bridge : Public works: The parents of a controversial former planning commissioner own the land. Some council members question whether anyone used advance knowledge of the bridge plan in an effort to turn a profit.

Looking to build a sorely needed bridge, the Carson City Council last week voted to purchase land for the project. But suddenly, the council reversed itself.

The problem?

Minutes after the decision to buy the property had been made, it was disclosed that the parcel is owned by the parents of Francisco (Frank) Gutierrez, a controversial former planning commissioner.

Some council members questioned whether Gutierrez, while on the planning commission, might have urged his parents to buy the land using advance knowledge of the bridge project. They immediately rescinded their decision to purchase the property and ordered City Atty. Glenn R. Watson to determine precisely when Gutierrez’s parents had acquired it.

“My concern is that everything was done legally, that no one received any advantage, that no one received any inside information that resulted in their financial gain,” Councilwoman Sylvia L. Muise-Perez said.

Watson, however, downplayed the importance of the issue, saying there appeared to be nothing criminal or improper about the Gutierrezes’ transaction. He said the council had not required him to do an in-depth investigation and added that, even if it had, he doubted that such a probe could prove wrongdoing.

Council members have asked Watson to report back to them Tuesday, when they are scheduled to resume discussion about purchasing the property.

Frank P. and Lupe G. Gutierrez, the ex-planner’s parents, bought the Carson Street parcel in 1986 for $49,000, according to real estate records. If the city buys the land as originally planned, the couple will receive $210,000--a profit of about $161,000.

In an interview this week, Gutierrez, a planning commissioner from 1979 to February of this year, said there was nothing improper about his parents’ purchase of the land. He noted that the bridge project has never come before the Planning Commission and he scoffed at the suggestion that he might have provided his parents with inside information about it.

“It’s all bull----,” Gutierrez said. “It’s all lies.”

Gutierrez resigned from the Planning Commission in February amid accusations that he had a business relationship with a developer who often appeared before the panel. The allegations are being reviewed by the district attorney’s office.

Prompting the council’s questions about the Carson Street parcel is a longstanding city plan to build a bridge that would allow traffic on that roadway to cross uninterrupted over train tracks that parallel Alameda Street.

Increasingly in recent years, cargo trains on their way to the Intermodal Container Transfer Facility in Wilmington have blocked cars heading east and west through the area for up to 20 minutes at a time.

Angry residents of the Dominguez and Lincoln Village neighborhoods east of the tracks have repeatedly complained that passing trains have virtually cut their neighborhoods off from the rest of the city.

In 1984, the city decided to seek funding for the overpass but it took several years before money was secured for the project.

In 1986, Frank P. and Lupe G. Gutierrez bought the site near the intersection of Carson and Alameda streets.

In 1987, the city received state and federal funds that allowed Carson to move forward with the project. That same year, the city decided on a route that includes the Gutierrez land.

The proposed $210,000 sale price for the Gutierrez property represents the land’s fair market value as determined by county appraisers, said acting Public Works Director George Schultz.

Gutierrez said the property’s increased value is part of “the normal real estate cycle that brought all property values up in the area,” not a result of the bridge project.

Watson and Schultz point out that the plan to build a bridge in the area has been a matter of public record since at least 1984 and information on proposed routes was available to anyone.

“Of course, it’s appropriate to look into (the purchase),” Watson said. “However, when the chips are down, ultimately we are either going to acquire the property by condemnation or purchase” or risk losing the funds earmarked for the $12-million project.

At the July 21 council meeting when the purchase was first brought up, city staff members said they were unaware of the family ties between property owners, Frank P. and Lupe G. Gutierrez, and their son, the ex-planning commissioner.

The item was first approved 4-0, with Councilwoman Kay A. Calas, a longtime friend of the Gutierrez family, abstaining. The council immediately reversed itself after inquiries by Muise-Perez and Mayor Michael I. Mitoma prompted Calas to identify the relationship between the property owners and the ex-planning commissioner.

Said Mitoma: “With the son sitting on the Planning Commission during the time this property was acquired, there was information in regard to what properties were going to be acquired during our condemnation proceedings to do this overpass. The question then becomes, ‘Was this property acquired during that time and was it acquired with information that was gathered from the son?’ . . . Is that appropriate or inappropriate?”

Gutierrez’s ethics have come under fire before and his tenure on the Planning Commission was marked by repeated calls by residents for his ouster.

His resignation in February came after a group of mobile home residents raised questions about whether his alleged ties to residential developer Thomas Development Inc. represented a conflict of interest.

An attorney representing the mobile home residents, in a letter to the city, said that Gutierrez “directly monetarily benefited” from decisions involving the closure of mobile home parks within the city of Carson.

In 1990, Gutierrez was fired from his job as a high-ranking Los Angeles County health inspector for not disclosing his ties to slumlords while serving as chairman of an interagency slum housing task force in Los Angeles.

Gutierrez was alleged to have been a business associate of slumlords that the city was investigating. A suit he filed against the county health department is on appeal.

This week, he declined comment on those matters.

But he defended his father’s and mother’s conduct in the Carson Street transaction and said the allegations of improprieties were politically motivated to curry favor with the mobile home residents group.

“I’m not concerned because there was nothing wrong” about the purchase, Gutierrez said.