Roth Facing Another Vote Abstention : Inquiry: Supervisor may have to excuse himself because of his past dealings with the Baldwin Building Co. A landscaping job is at the center of the controversy.

SANTA ANA —  County Supervisor Don R. Roth, who abstained from two votes Tuesday because of potential conflicts, may have to excuse himself from another decision next week because of his dealings with a major local developer, his attorney said Wednesday.

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to sign off Dec. 15 on street and lighting improvements that were made at a north Lake Forest housing development by the Baldwin Building Co. That is the same company that paid another firm $1,950 in late 1990 to landscape the front yard of Roth’s Anaheim Hills home.

Roth’s attorney, Dana Reed, said Wednesday that he will review the Baldwin project to see whether Roth may have to abstain from a vote for the second straight week because of a potential conflict. “We’ll have to wait (to decide) until we can do a thorough legal analysis,” he said.

Citing “an overabundance of caution,” Roth abstained Tuesday from votes involving the city of Anaheim and a local business family. Members of the Dougher family had hosted Roth on three weekend getaways to Santa Catalina Island and gave him what amounted to an $8,500 loan. City of Anaheim officials gave Roth a lifetime pass for golfing on city courses.

The landscaping job is one of the latest issues to become public in the 8-month-old controversy over Roth’s acceptance and reporting of gifts. The district attorney’s office is seeking to determine whether the supervisor traded political favors for trips, flight upgrades, home improvements, an $8,500 rent deferral and other gifts from local business people.

Roth has predicted that he will be exonerated. Reed has said he does not believe that Roth is guilty of any criminal wrongdoing.

Baldwin officials, who initially denied that they ever paid for the work, now maintain that Roth did not reimburse them for the landscaping because of a bookkeeping glitch at the company.

After questions about the job raised in The Times last month, Roth sent the Baldwin company a check for half the $1,950 bill, Reed said last week. The supervisor left the rest of the payment for his ex-wife, Jackie Roth, but she said she does not plan to pay it because Roth had promised earlier to pay the cost of the job.

County records show that in the year after the late-1990 landscaping job, Roth voted at least five times on Baldwin company matters, posing a potential conflict of interest under state law. The Political Reform Act bans local elected officials from voting on matters affecting anyone who has given them gifts worth more than $250 in the previous 12 months.

Reed said his office will have to look at several issues in advising Roth on whether he should abstain from the Baldwin vote. Among these factors is whether the giver of the gift would be considered the Baldwin Co. or the landscaping company, which is also owned by the Baldwin family. Also at issue is whether Roth paid the “fair market value” for the work last week when he sent Baldwin his $975 check.

Several landscapers have said that the extensive work done on the Roths’ front yard--including installation of sod, trees, shrubs and an automatic sprinkler system--would ordinarily cost as much as $5,600.