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Report: Newport official under investigation

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Orange County prosecutors are reviewing a complaint against a top Newport Beach official who may have failed to report meals and gifts from companies working with the city, according to a published report.

The city sent the complaint to the Orange County district attorney’s office in March after officials raised concerns that Assistant City Manager Steve Badum may have received gifts on 41 occasions from companies that were granted no-bid contracts from the city, the Orange County Register reported Tuesday evening.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Mike Lubinski declined to comment about the article or his office’s review of the matter.

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Badum, who currently is on bereavement leave, is expected to retire May 2. He could not be reached for comment by the Daily Pilot on Wednesday.

However, he told the Register that he would have disclosed any gifts if he took them.

“If I had received things, I would have reported it,” he told the newspaper. “As far as I’m concerned, everything was appropriately reported. Some of these things may be social things.”

The newspaper report cites a March 12 confidential memo sent from Newport Beach City Attorney Aaron Harp to the City Council.

Harp and members of the council declined to provide the Daily Pilot with a copy of the memo or to comment about it.

“The memo was prepared for closed-session use only,” Harp said. “I don’t know how [the Register] obtained it.”

Harp’s memo asked the council if it would like to pursue a criminal investigation against Badum, but it notes that all the evidence gathered was circumstantial and that members of Harp’s office “have not concluded that [he] has accepted a bribe or fraudulently allowed a contract,” according to the report.

The memo identified C.W. Driver, the company that acted as construction manager for the controversial Newport Beach Civic Center project, as one of the companies that may have provided gifts to Badum.

According to the memo, Badum had meals 11 times between July 2008 and November 2014 with C.W. Driver representatives.

The assistant city manager also joined the organization on a four-day excursion to Pebble Beach last year. Badum, according to the newspaper, said he paid his own way on the trip.

Badum also reportedly dined with officials from Laguna Beach-based Griffin Structures, a construction consulting firm that was engaged in $345,405 worth of business with the city, 22 times between October 2006 and October 2014 at upscale restaurants.

It is unclear who paid for the meals that Badum shared with Griffin Structures or C.W. Driver. Representatives of both companies could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Copies of receipts obtained by the Daily Pilot through the state’s open-records law show that Badum dined and paid for meals with officials from C.W. Driver, architectural firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Griffin Structures and sometimes other city staff members on more than a dozen occasions from September 2011 to June 2014.

Badum’s conflict-of-interest forms show that he has never accepted a reportable gift while working for the city.

According to the Register report, Harp’s investigation began in February after Badum made comments to a city employee who expressed concern that he might not have reported gifts received from outside entities. In his inquiry, Harp reviewed Badum’s emails and electronic calendar dating to 2002.

Badum first began working for the city in 1988 as a senior civil engineer. After a seven-year stint with Newport Beach, Badum left to assume the role of director of public works for the city of Seal Beach.

He returned to Newport Beach in 2001 as its public works director, a position he held until 2012, when he was promoted to assistant city manager.

Badum was responsible for overseeing construction of the Civic Center — a project that received criticism from Newport Beach residents who believed the city overspent on the complex. It opened in 2013.

When officials learned early this week that the Register was planning to publish a story that would disclose possibly “privileged” information, attorneys for the city asked for a temporary restraining order in Orange County Superior Court, aiming to prevent the newspaper from running the article.

“Disclosure of the closed-session memorandum or its contents would enable those involved in the matters on which the city may institute litigation to obstruct justice by the destruction of evidence or evasion of arrest and criminal prosecution,” according to the court papers.

Judge David McEachen granted the request for prior restraint at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Register’s story appeared online later that day.

In a statement provided by the Register on Wednesday evening, Editor Rob Curley said: “The city of Newport Beach did not notify the Register about the court filing or hearing, and our editors did not learn about the existence of the restraining order until today — after the story already was published.

“The Register published this story for a simple reason: It clearly involves a matter of legitimate public concern. The city of Newport Beach feels so strongly about the matter that it is asking the district attorney’s office to investigate.”

Harp said he plans to ask the City Council “as soon as possible” if it wants to waive its attorney-client privilege and release the memo.

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