ANAHEIM : Council Names 10 to Budget Commission

C. Douglas Leavenworth, who resigned from the county’s Planning Commission in February amid conflict-of-interest allegations, was one of 10 people the City Council appointed to its new Budget Advisory Commission on Tuesday.

Also approved were L. Kenneth Heuler, who was ousted by the council from the Public Utility Board in 1987, and Lynne Pierson Doti, a Chapman University economics professor and wife of university President James L. Doti.

The council established the board in August as it wrestled with the city’s budget crisis, which forced the passage of a controversial 2% utility-users tax.

Leavenworth, a retired aerospace engineer who was nominated by Councilman Irv Pickler, resigned from the county board after he revealed on a state form that he had accepted $365 worth of golfing privileges, event tickets and meals from the Mission Viejo Co. in 1988 while continuing to vote on issues affecting the firm.

Leavenworth later revised his form, saying he had originally included some gifts given to his wife. Both the Orange County district attorney and the state Fair Political Practices Commission declined to prosecute. Leavenworth and county Supervisor Don R. Roth, who asked for the resignation, have insisted that the probe had nothing to do with Leavenworth’s departure.

“There was no conflict,” Leavenworth said Tuesday. He added that Pickler approached him about being on the commission.

“I don’t know that I’m even looking forward to it,” Leavenworth said. “But I guess it’s a chance to do something (for the city).”

Pickler said Leavenworth had done nothing wrong and is “a man of integrity.”

“You can put down all the positive adjectives that you want, and I would endorse every single one of them when it comes to Doug Leavenworth.”

Heuler, also a Pickler nominee, was Pickler’s representative on the Public Utilities Board in 1987 when Councilman William D. Ehrle and two other council members voted to remove him. At that time, Ehrle said Heuler was not “grasping the magnitude” of his position, while Pickler charged that the action was politically motivated.

Also appointed to the board were Leon Alexander, an Anaheim attorney; Julie Mayer, owner of a small business; Dick Clark, an executive with Rockwell International Corp; Ned Snavely, general manager of the Anaheim Marriott Hotel; Tom Tate, owner of Tate & Associates, an engineering firm; Shirley McCracken, a church and school consultant; and Rick Vaughn, owner of an insurance company.