For Carson, upheaval is 'normal'.

IN the midst of routine matters that came before the Carson City Council last week, Councilman Jim Dear leaned over to consult with another council member.

Catching himself, he said "I shouldn't be whispering, especially in this city."

In Carson, where decades of corruption and scandal seemed to coalesce last fall when three officials, including Mayor Daryl Sweeney, and seven others were indicted on charges ranging from bribery to extortion, officials have tried to maintain a sense of normalcy.

As City Clerk Helen Kawagoe put it, "We act like everything is okay."

But all is not okay in Carson.

Sweeney, who pled not guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit extortion and mail fraud, has attended events like a recent prayer vigil for the troops in Iraq. But as agenda items postponed in the wake of the indictments get back on track, an unrelenting rain of legal pressures is taking its toll.

"Everyone wants the latest scoop about who's going to jail next," said James Griffith, general manager of Larson Training Centers Inc. "The fear I have is that all the negativism has hurt us economically, for new businesses or any current businesses wanting to expand. It compares Carson to other local cities, like Compton."

Allen MacKenzie, president of Mar Ventures Inc., developer of a 1 million-square-foot building, said he has noticed the city staff, overburdened with work related to the scandals, with less time to deal with business issues.

Dear acknowledged the concerns but appealed for business leaders to acknowledge the efforts to turn things around.

"I don't want business interests to get too scared of what's happened," he said. "Even though we've had all the bad things happen, and all this terrible publicity about our city, within all that lies hope that our city will be successful."

Distractions mount

Indeed, much of the business of Carson these days seems to involve old scandals or new ones.

Last month, the council met in a closed-door session to discuss a suit filed last year by developer Rand Pearlman Ventures LLC against the city, the Carson Redevelopment Agency and Sweeney. In the suit, Rand Pearlman claims that Robert Pryce, Sweeney's personal attorney, offered a bribe in exchange for die bid on a 93-acre mixed-use project in Carson.

Pryce was among those indicted last fall, charged with 49 counts including bribery, mail fraud and money laundering.

At last week's council meeting, 100 people spent more than an hour voicing support for City Manager Jerry Groomes, whose employment contract is being considered for renewal when it comes due next year.

Much of the support came because Groomes, instrumental in inking a deal with Anschutz Entertainment Group to build an 85-acre Home Depot National Training Center, is "a solid pillar in the community and has been unscathed by all the rhetoric' said Griffith.

"I think it's gotten better, but as long as there is a lack of unity and a lack of focus on the council's part, it's hard to get city business done' said MacKenzie. "The most successful cities in L.A. County are those where the council is unified, works together well and has good leadership. That is not the case in Carson right now."

Never-ending troubles

As proof, there is the March 4 election that brought two new members to the council to replace Manual Ontal, who resigned from the council in April 2002 and pled guilty to bribery charges, and Raunda Frank, who resigned late last year after being indicted on federal extortion charges. Ontal has been cooperating with the FBI; Frank pleaded guilty last week.

In the weeks after Julie Ruiz Raber and Elito Santarina were elected to the two vacant seats, they were named in a suit brought by four losing candidates, alleging state election code violations.

The city, though not a defendant in the case, is defending the two new councilmembers.

"What we're talking about is a pattern of illegal voting that started in 1992 and came to its height in 1997' said Vera Robles DeWitt, who received 1,751 votes in the March election, 171 fewer than Raber. "Then, it occurred in this election. They are casting votes illegally or casting votes that don't exist?'

The election spurred yet another investigation, this one by the Los Angeles County District Attorney, into illegal "hit piece" mailers.

Some residents criticized the unidentified parties that sent out mailers criticizing DeWitt the weekend before the election.

At this month's city council meeting, Robert Lesley, president of the Carson Coalition of Concerned Citizens and a retired police officer at the Port of Los Angeles, discussed the mailers issue with the council.

"I'm here to address a greater concern, a cancerous practice of illegal mailers that a person or group is using to distort voters rights and divide the community. That kind of practice needs to stop. The violators need to be prosecuted to bring back fairness and integrity in this community."

Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the L.A. District Attorney, declined to comment about "pending investigations."

Terry Francke, general counsel of the California First Amendment Coalition, which questioned Carson's decision to hold discussions about many of the legal matters facing it behind closed doors, said Carson is no different from other scandal-plagued cities.

"The sad and ironic pattern is this cycle of mistrust," Francke said. "Where any kind of scandal arises around how a city is being run, it is extremely tempting for officials to circle the wagons and deal with everything as quietly as possible."

Dear, aware of the criticisms of the closed-door sessions, said the city attorney sits in on the meetings and consults about whether they may be in violation of the Brown Act, which limits closed-door sessions to special circumstances.

Through it all, Sweeney still presides over the four-person council as he awaits a July 22 hearing in U.S. District Court in downtown L.A. Asked during a break at last week's council meeting to comment about recent issues facing the city, Sweeney declined.

Dear reiterated that the mayor has not been convicted of anything, and said he has acted professionally during his entire time as mayor.

And Ron Winkler, Carson's economic development manager, said city politics have not affected large projects, such as the recent $34.4 million purchase of Carson's SouthBay Pavilion by Newport Beach-based Hopkins Real Estate Group.

"As long as he's on the bench, he's doing city development' Lesley said of Sweeney. 'The influence this guy had on the city, even before he was elected, was tremendous."