ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : One More Question About Roth

In recent months, articles in The Times have painted a disturbing portrait of Supervisor Don R. Roth’s loose reporting of gifts from people doing business with Orange County. Last week, there was a new wrinkle that can only raise even more questions.

The revelation was that Roth listed a $2,500 honorarium from a Wall Street firm for a trip to New York as compensation for a speech at a seminar that he never made. He has refused to comment, but interviews and documents show that Roth met in a closed meeting in New York with executives of First Boston Corp. to talk about jail-financing strategies, and then saw some of the town. Later, he became an important ally in Orange County for that firm’s efforts to be the financing agency for a new jail.

Even if Roth is given the benefit of the doubt, the discrepancy between what he reported and what he actually did in New York amounts to sloppy record-keeping.

In other instances, Roth failed to report on his economic-interest statements three trips to Santa Catalina Island in 1990 and 1991 and a deferred-rent agreement under which he lived at a campaign contributor’s mobile home park. And he has never explained the double billing of his expenses for a 1990 rail technology tour in Europe.

Roth is already being investigated by the county district attorney’s office and the FBI to determine whether he violated conflict-of-interest laws and other regulations governing public officials’ relationships with people doing business with the county.

In the latest matter, the state Fair Political Practices Commission says that any intentional misreporting of the $2,500 could lead to disciplinary action.

First Boston does not appear to have had any business before the county in the one-year period after the New York City trip that would be governed by state conflict-of-interest laws. However, before and after the trip, Roth did vote several times on issues affecting the company.

With each such instance of discrepancy in reporting of gifts, questions mount about Roth’s fitness to hold his powerful public office.