In The News: Miller Resignation

Grand Terrace councilman facing felony charge resigns
10:00 PM PST on Tuesday, March 9, 2010
By DARRELL R. SANTSCHI
The Press-Enterprise
GRAND TERRACE - City Councilman Jim Miller abruptly announced his resignation Tuesday night, admitting at a Grand Terrace council meeting that he should not have voted to approve payments of city funds to his wife's newspaper.
Miller, 61, said at the meeting that his resignation will be effective today and promised that his wife, Margie, who owns the weekly newspaper Grand Terrace City News, will return to the city about $18,000 that she was paid for running legal advertisements for the city from Oct. 26, 2006, to Aug. 12, 2008.
Miller was arrested last July on a felony conflict-of-interest charge stemming from his votes to approve payments to the newspaper as part of the council's consent calendar agenda, which contains a number of routine items approved in a single vote.
"I now know that I should have been told to refrain from voting on those items," Miller said Tuesday. "No one ever suggested that I should abstain from voting on those items or had a conflict of interest."
Fellow Councilman Walt Stanckiewitz, who stepped out of his chair and around the dais to shake Miller's hand, criticized other council members for not publicly supporting Miller and laid some blame for Miller's votes on City Attorney John Harper.
"Your hands are soiled in this also," he told Harper, accusing him of failing to "do your homework" before rendering an opinion.
In a report filed in support of the criminal charge, a San Bernardino County district attorney's investigator quoted Miller as saying Harper had told him when his wife bought the newspaper in 2006 that her ownership posed no conflict of interest for Miller.
Harper has since contended that his opinion dealt with whether the councilman's wife could make a purchase within the city-wide redevelopment agency boundary, not with Jim Miller voting on payments to the paper.
Miller said at Tuesday night's meeting that he had provided a copy of the prenuptial agreement he and his wife signed that provided for her to own the newspaper separately. She bought the paper in 2006 and stopped taking ads from the city, Jim Miller said, when she was told that a potential conflict existed.
Details about how Miller's resignation could affect his legal case were unavailable Tuesday night. He is next due in court May 4.

Reach Darrell R. Santschi at 951-368-9484 or dsantschi@PE.com