Mitoma Says Election Loan Wrongly Termed a Contribution by Foes

Carson Councilman Michael Mitoma says that a $5,000 loan from an employee of a mobile home park owner should not have been counted by his opponents as a political contribution from park owners.

The woman who made the loan said it was done out of friendship and had nothing to do with mobile home politics.

Chuck Massman, an activist among the city’s many mobile home owners, conceded in an interview that it would have been more accurate to indicate that the loan was different from a contribution. Massman said he had lumped in the loan with contributions from park owners in a 1987 flyer opposing Mitoma.

Mitoma, who won a narrow victory citywide in 1987 and is running for reelection April 12, was soundly beaten in two large mobile home precincts last year, which went overwhelmingly for Aaron Carter, Mitoma’s chief political rival, then and now.

$1,000 Wagers Offered

The issue of the loan arose early this month when Mitoma bet Carter and Massman $1,000 each that they could not prove the truth of a statement they used last year. Neither took the bet.

The statement was that Mitoma had received about $12,500 in contributions from mobile home park owners when he ran unsuccessfully in 1986. Carter used the statement in one of his campaign brochures; Massman, chairman of Carson’s Mobile Home Action Committee, put the statement in a flyer distributed by the group.

Carter has asserted that the statement about Mitoma’s contributions in 1986 is true and that Mitoma had hidden contributions. Carter did not say whether he meant the loan and could not be reached for elaboration.

Mitoma contends the loan cannot be considered a contribution.

“There is a lot of difference between $7,000 and $12,000. The point is the stretching of the truth. It would have been different if they had said $7,525 from mobile home park owners and $5,000 in a loan from an employee of a mobile home park owner,” he said.

The loan was from Marilyn Russell, who is listed in the campaign finance reports as manager of Beach Enterprises. She loaned Mitoma $5,000 on Nov. 27, 1985, and was repaid Jan. 9, 1986, according to Mitoma’s campaign finance reports. In an interview, Russell said the reports are accurate.

The company that Russell works for is owned by Jim Bradley, a co-owner of the Vera Carson mobile home park on Vera Street, but Beach Enterprises has nothing to do with the park, according to Russell and Bradley. The firm’s business is involved in owning and operating a building in Long Beach, where Russell is manager. Russell is also a stockholder in Pacific Business Bank, where Mitoma is president, and a longtime friend of Mitoma.

She and Bradley both said the loan was not made to advance the interests of mobile home park owners and that Bradley was unaware of the loan at the time it was made.

Russell said she made the loan to Mitoma out of friendship. “He asked me for a 30-day loan and I said, ‘Sure.’ He was good for it. It had nothing to do with Mr. Bradley at all. I knew Mike before he was in the banking business.

“It wasn’t a contribution. I wouldn’t contribute that kind of money to anybody. It’s ridiculous, friends or not.”

Mitoma said he used the money for a fund-raiser and repaid Russell out of the proceeds.

He added that as councilman, he has not been swayed by the contributions of mobile home park owners.

The point was acknowledged by Massman, who said Mitoma has not voted against the interests of mobile home owners during the year he has spent on the council.