For news stories of interest from 2007, see below and, for later articles, click here.
For news stories of interest from 2006, click here.
For news stories of interest from 2005 and before, click here.
Costs stall fire station plans
By Mike Sprague, Staff Writer
LA HABRA HEIGHTS - The City Council took another step this week toward building a new fire station at its current site. But officials appeared to step back from seeking a contract for fire services with Los Angeles County.
Councilman Stan Carroll, who favored seeking a proposal from the county, said he received a letter from Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman in which Freeman estimated it would cost La Habra Heights $4.1 million a year to contract with the county.
"Anything that is three times what we're spending \ is not something I'm going to consider. That letter rules out going with the county," he said.
Mayor Brian Bergman and Councilwoman Tela Millsap both oppose seeking an official cost-estimate from the county. But Councilmen Layne Baroldi and Howard Vipperman still want to pursue a possible county contract.
Retired firefighter Roy Francis presented a petition Thursday with 200 signatures asking the council to seek a proposal.
"Is that \ what it would be actually be if the county did an independent study like it did for La Habra? You won't know until you ask," he told council members.
Carroll also asked city staff to place on the council's June 14 agenda a contract to provide a topographical map of the existing City Hall/fire station property.
Such a study is needed so that architect Kelly Needham can do a better job of showing all the possibilities of building a new fire station at its existing site.
The council on a 3-2 vote in February selected the southwest corner of Hacienda and West roads as a site for a new station. But since then, an election shook up the council majority.
A new majority of Carroll, Baroldi and Vipperman wants the city to at least consider building a station where it is now.
The council has asked Needham to look at reducing the size of the station, as proposed by fire Chief John Nielsen, as well as ways to find more parking spaces.
One way to get more parking would be to have firetrucks back up into the site from Hacienda Road.
Majdi Ataya, city engineer, said the high level of traffic on Hacienda Road poses dangers because oncoming cars traveling at up to 40 mph might not see the firetrucks.
Whittier Daily News. June 1, 2007
Sworn to root out the corrupt; DA's integrity unit polices pols' behavior
By Frank C. Girardot, Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES - David Demerjian's office window looks north from downtown over a small slice of the county that pays him to police its politicians.
Inside the office, on the seventh floor of a building well past its prime, Demerjian is surrounded by law books, CDs, photographs and a faded coffee table history of Mad Magazine.
As head of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Public Integrity Division, Demerjian, 53, hopes he is the man corrupt politicians fear most.
In recent weeks, politicians in several local cities, including Covina, Montebello and Alhambra, have found themselves in Demerjian's crosshairs.
It wasn't always that way.
"It seems like just recently we've been active in the San Gabriel Valley," Demerjian said. "The more success we have, the more people become aware of what we do - although the number of complaints we have is very constant."
The enforcement of statutes as arcane as the Ralph M. Brown Act, the state's open-meeting law, or as basic as bribery of public officials is a relatively new concept in Los Angeles County, Demerjian said.
Prior to 2000, officials pretty much ignored the petty crimes of politicians and appointed officials, Demerjian said.
"I didn't even know corruption existed in Los Angeles County," he said.
Things changed just after Steve Cooley was elected DA. Cooley said he formed the division after a reporter asked him to look into a Brown Act violation involving the Los Angeles Unified School District.
"The Brown Act was never enforced - ever, ever, ever, since it was enacted in 1952," Cooley said. "We started enforcing it the first week I was in office."
Since 2001, the PID has handled 259 Brown Act complaints. From those complaints, Demerjian has sent 69 letters to various city councils, school boards, water and special districts. Unlike corruption cases, which are criminal, Brown Act violations are normally civil matters.
"If there is a violation, there are two letters we might write," Demerjian said. "One says, `We believe you violated the \ on such and such a day. And we are asking you declare that action to be void."
The second?
"It's basically a `knock it off' letter," Demerjian said.
Only one agency, the Covina Redevelopment Agency, has ever been targeted for civil action in a Brown Act case, primarily because the CRA didn't agree it had violated the law. That case is ongoing and awaiting an interpretation from the state attorney general.
Beyond Brown Act cases, Demerjian has received 2,061 complaints of criminal activity and corruption, according to official records.
From those, 156 felony cases have been filed. Demerjian has taken 12 cases to trial and earned 11 convictions.
Unlike most other prosecutorial offices, which rely on police to bring forward cases, the PID looks into complaints generated by the general public.
Sometimes the complaints come from legitimately concerned citizens; others are merely political.
"We do see that when a majority in a city changes we end up with new targets," Demerjian said. "Sometimes whoever gets voted out, all of a sudden they are filing a complaint with us because the other side is now getting a bigger piece of the pie."
Open-government advocate Terry Francke of Californians Aware said connecting Brown Act and criminal prosecutions makes Demerjian's office more effective.
"It's an interesting linkage," Francke said. "You are not going to find a corrupt, yet, admirably open government."
Demerjian grew up in Covina and graduated from South Hills High School. He attended Cal State Fullerton, graduated law school and was hired by the DA's Office; first prosecuting juveniles.
From there, he moved to major narcotics prosecutions and finally hard-core gangs, he said.
As head of the hard-core gang unit, Demerjian filed the case against three Pasadena men accused of killing three teens on Halloween night in 1993.
The three men - Lorenzo Newborn, Herbert McClain, and Karl Holmes - were ultimately sentenced to death three years to the day after the killings. Jonlyn Callahan, a prosecutor in the case, now works for Demerjian in the PID.
Going after criminal corruption isn't too different from going after gang members, Demerjian said.
"The witness intimidation factor is similar," he said. "People are afraid to speak out."
Being targeted in a PID investigation is nothing to take lightly. As with any police agency serving search warrants, PID investigators come to the door with guns drawn and a willingness to leave no stone unturned.
West Covina City Councilman Roger Hernandez was targeted in 2005 as part of an investigation that concluded in March with no charges being filed.
"There was knocking at the door," Hernandez said, recalling the day when the condominium he shares with his brother was searched.
"I popped the door open, looked outside and there were multiple firearms pointing at me," Hern ndez said. "It's traumatic to have people going through your underwear drawer, your sock drawer. It's a traumatizing, violating experience."
Former Baldwin Park City Councilman Bill Van Cleave, who is facing trial in July for misuse of public funds, recalled a similar experience.
"They kicked my door in and held guns to my head," said Van Cleave. "They handcuffed me and took me in. And now, I can say they ruined my entire life. I can't work, and I can't sleep."
On the other hand, Covina resident and community activist Steve Millard, who brought the complaint against the Covina Redevelopment Agency, praised Demerjian and his deputies.
"I have dealt with them directly," Millard said. "It wasn't like they were there talking about golf scores."
Besides Van Cleave, the PID has put together a wide variety of local corruption cases, according to public documents.
Among them:
People v. Pete Sabatino (2002): Sabatino, a member of the West Covina School Board, pleaded guilty to perjury after PID investigators determined that he lived in Downey. He resigned from the board.
People v. Cody Cluff (2003): Cluff, a onetime resident of Covina, pleaded guilty to several counts of misuse of public funds and embezzlement. The crimes were allegedly committed while Cluff headed the Entertainment Industry Development Council.
People v. Parker Williams and Frank Liu (pending): Williams, a former Alhambra councilman, was videotaped allegedly offering a $25,000 cash bribe to current councilman Danny Arguello in return for his vote on a proposed shopping center. Liu, a developer, is also charged in the case. The case is scheduled to go to trial later this year.
Demerjian said he anticipates the DA's Office will continue prosecuting political corruption for many years.
"I'm hoping that at some point if Steve Cooley doesn't want to run for DA, whoever comes in wants to keep this thing going," Demerjian said. "I think it serves an important function."
The function is simple to define, according to Cooley.
"The public is benefitting and all the honest people on city councils are benefitting too," Cooley said. "In a sense we're standing up for them."
Whittier Daily News, May 28, 2007
Lawsuit redirects City Hall paper trail; Glendora revamps document access
By Alison Hewitt, Staff Writer
GLENDORA - Two months after losing a public records lawsuit, the City Council decided to computerize paper documents, which is expected to make it easier to respond to record requests.
The vote Tuesday night approved the purchase of an $84,300 system that will turn the city's voluminous paper records into easily searchable electronic records and put some documents on- line.
Gil Aguirre, who filed the public records lawsuit, said he sued after his repeated written requests for a variety of documents were ignored, in addition to being required to make his requests in written form and being overcharged for copies. He supported the decision to make public records more accessible, but said the city's newest changes don't rectify past mistakes.
"I'm not sure the lawsuit has changed anything," he said. "I fully expect to be in front of a judge in the near future challenging the city's compliance with the judge's ruling."
A judge ordered Glendora in March to stop requiring records requests to be written down and to stop overcharging for copies - a bar the city attorney said the city has always met.
The city maintains that it has always complied with the state's Public Records Act and that the city does not need to make any changes in response to the lawsuit.
"I think it fell through the cracks, otherwise I would have taken a more active role in finding people to ferret out what he asked for," said City Manager Eric Ziegler.
City Attorney Wayne Leech said Aguirre received all the documents he asked for - although he would not address whether the city responded within the legally required timeframe - and added that the judge never found that the city violated the California Public Records Act.
Aguirre, a San Dimas resident who rents out apartments in Glendora, began making records requests in earnest after he heard about a proposed fee for street lights that struck him as expensive. He tried to find out more, but several of his requests for documents were rebuffed, he said.
Under the Public Records Act, the city is required to release public documents such as those Aguirre was asking for within 10 days or give a written explanation for the delay. In many cases, Aguirre said he received neither.
Finally, Aguirre put his requests in writing, sending them out in letters pointing out that the city was violating the CPRA, but none of the letters received a response, he said. His court documents include copies of the letters - one to Ziegler on April 20, 2006, then to Ziegler and the city clerk on May 3, 2006, and finally to Leech on June 1, 2006.
"Mr. Aguirre made those claims in his writ, and the court disagreed with Mr. Aguirre," Leech said, though he would not say what had happened.
Ziegler recalled receiving two letters.
"I was under the impression that we had provided a response," Ziegler said, adding that he had checked with city employees. No one asked Aguirre about it until after the lawsuit was filed, Ziegler said.
Aguirre filed his lawsuit in late June. He asked the court to require the city to provide the documents he had asked for.
In September, Aguirre said, the city began providing copies of the documents that Aguirre had hoped to use to oppose the street lighting assessment - which was discussed at a meeting in July.
"Those records were purposely and willfully withheld from me," Aguirre said. "They knew I had mounted opposition against previous assessments."
In his lawsuit, Aguirre also asked the judge to require Glendora to lower the rates it charged for photocopies - 25 cents per page - and to stop requiring public records requests be written on a city form. The CPRA requires cities to accept oral requests for public records, said Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware, an open-government advocacy group. The CPRA also requires cities to charge no more than their cost for copying, Francke said.
"I don't know how they would ever justify \ as direct cost," Francke said.
The city's response to the lawsuit argued that copying takes 30 seconds per page, and an administrative assistant making the copies would cost the city 29 cents per second.
Francke questioned whet her the person making almost a penny per second would really have to spend a full 30 seconds per page at the copy machine.
The judge granted two of Aguirre's requests, writing in March that the city was "commanded" to "Cease requiring Public Records Act Requests to be made in writing" and "Cease charging fees for copies of public records that are in excess of the direct cost of duplication."
Leech said the city has always followed those requirements. A $25 administrative fee for copying large maps was dropped in December, before any judgment was received, he added.
The city clerk's office said the city does not require people to fill out a form to make records requests, although it is helpful, and that the office was revamping the existing form.
The copying fees are still $1 for the first four pages and 25 cents per additional page.
"I'm not sure the lawsuit has changed anything," Aguirre said, "and that I'm not going to have to be back in front of a judge again. They're still charging the same fees and they're still requiring people to fill out the forms," Aguirre said. "It's intimidation."
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 25, 2007
Signatures are certified for recall election
By Marisela Santana, Staff Writer
City Council has until next Wednesday to set a date for the recall election against four council members.
LYNWOOD -- City Council members were told last week that the county Registrar-Recorder's Office had certified the signatures on the petitions to recall four of them and that they had 14 days in which to call for a special election.
City Clerk Andrea Hooper said she received a call from the Registrar-Recorder's Office May 15 notifying her that the recall had passed and that the petitions were sealed and ready for pickup. Sheriff's deputies later brought the petitions back to City Hall where they were placed them in a safe in Hooper's office.
"The boxes were sealed and delivered and have not been touched since," Hooper said in an interview Wednesday. "The council was told that they had 14 days from the 15th of May to call for a special election -- and if they do not do so, the county elections office will set it for them within five days after the 14 days are up."
Residents are seeking to recall Mayor Louis Byrd, Mayor Pro Tem Fernando Pedroza and council members Alfreddie Johnson and Leticia Vasquez.
Hooper said that she believed council members will hold a special meeting Tuesday to call for the special election, but technically could wait until Wednesday, because of Monday's Memorial Day holiday.
If the council does not set a date for the recall election by May 30, the county by law will set one by June 4.
The special election must then be held after 88 days, but no later than 125 days, Hooper said. Once the election date is set, the city clerk's office open up the nomination period.
With a regularly scheduled City Council election coming up Nov. 6, the recall election is likely to cause some confusion among voters, Hooper said. "And it's going to get worse as we move along."
Two of the council members targeted by the recall, Byrd and Vasquez, are up for re-election in November.
Hooper is also up for re-election in November, as is Iris Pygatt, the city treasurer.
From the beginning, recall proponents said they knew if the recall qualified for the ballot, that it would cause some confusion among voters who will be faced with going to the polls twice within a few months of each other.
Recall proponent Joanette Gutierrez said that she knew it wouldn't be an easy task to get voters to the polls twice within a few months, but she said, recalling the four council members for reasons that include approving a 30 percent water hike and awarding an exclusive negotiating agreement to a developer who wants to build a shopping center and a football stadium, replacing 1,000 homes in the process, is worth it."
"And I hope the community feels that way, too. We're going to need people to come out and vote," Gutierrez said this week. "These people aren't good people. They've lied to us and they continue to lie to us."
Gutierrez, who said that she was not notified that the signatures had been certified until May 17, is one of several residents seeking to recall the four council members.
It all started, she said, when the council approved the exclusive negotiating agreement for the Lynwood Promenade/Super Center before going to the residents first.
Gutierrez said as many as 1,000 residents have attended several protests concerning the proposed development, but the City Council is still in a negotiating process with the developer, John McDonald of Imperial Partners LLC.
"And they haven't stopped," she said. "They've continued to meet with him and they are continually having secret meetings with little groups of residents to talk about the Lynwood Promenade.
"I don't think they're going to give up," Gutierrez added. "They haven't dropped the project and I don't think they are. They recently took two vans full of residents to someplace in Irvine to again talk about the Lynwood Promenade. What are they trying to do with these people, brainwash them?"
According to Hooper, Byrd, Pedroza and Johnson were in Las Vegas this week at a redevelopment conference. Calls to the three of them, and to Vasquez were not returned by press time. Councilwoman Maria Santillan also attended the conference.
The recall proponents said the secret meetings with invited residents, means that these council members are sneaky and will stop at nothing.
"There were a lot of us out there collecting signatures," Gutierrez said. "We worked very hard to try to ensure that this recall passed, not just for us, but for the community of Lynwood [which] doesn't deserve council members who don't care about what [people want]. If we hadn't done all of this, I'm sure some of us would be without our homes right now."
Asked if residents would drop the recall effort if council members dropped the Lynwood Promenade project, Gutierrez said no.
"Council members had their chance to drop the project," she said. "Yes, it would make us very happy, but let's face it, they're not going to drop it and if they've come this far and will go to great lengths to bus people out of the community to brainwash them, then I don't believe these are people who can ever be trusted again."
Hooper said along with the recall of the four council members, the special election ballot would contain a list of candidates hoping to replace any of the four who are recalled.
Los Angeles Wave, May 24, 2007
DA still waiting for DVD request; City attorney to seek Hernandez inquiry
By Frank C. Girardot, Staff Writer
WEST COVINA - The city has yet to request a District Attorney's Office investigation into accusations that a councilman inappropriately asked city staff to create a DVD.
The video showed council members supporting Councilman Roger Hernandez's bid to become mayor if he was cleared by a DA's investigation into his dealings with a local auto dealer. Prosecutors declined in March to file charges in the case.
Earlier this month, City Manager Andrew Pasmant said he would prepare information on the video accusations for the DA's Public Integrity Division.
Hernandez denied any wrongdoing and joined the council in a 4-0 vote to authorize the investigation.
"We haven't received a complaint yet," said Deputy District Attorney David Demerjian, head of the Public Integrity Division.
Pasmant said Monday he is still putting the package together.
"I want to present all the facts," Pasmant said. "The DA will have to go ahead and review it. It boils down to: Did he do it, or not? And that's what the DA's Office will have to evaluate."
Mayor Mike Touhey, attending a conference in Las Vegas with other members of the City Council, said he was not following the ongoing investigation.
"We don't get involved in that part of it," Touhey said. "I assume \ is doing it in whatever time frame he needs."
Hernandez may have committed a misdemeanor, Pasmant said earlier this month.
Supporters of Hernandez played the edited video during the public comments portion of the April 3 council meeting.
Two days later, Pasmant responded with a memo to Hernandez that accused the councilman of being in violation of the council's standing rules and the city's municipal code.
"You directed and instructed staff on what was to be edited from the various City Council meeting video tapes," Pasmant's memo declared. "\ to instigate a reaction from your colleagues on the City Council. This is an inappropriate use of city staff and resources at taxpayer expense."
Hernandez defended his actions in a memo. He claims he consulted with the city's Public Information Officer Sue Williams before having the DVD produced.
"Williams was specifically informed that I was requesting excerpts of Council meetings," Hernandez wrote. "Sue Williams' response \ `that is great, go right ahead.' I further noted that I wanted to keep her in the loop and to bring to her attention the nature of my request."
Williams did not comment Monday.
"I'm not allowed to discuss it," she said.
In his original memorandum to Hernandez, Pasmant said Hernandez's actions placed city employees at risk of being disciplined for their actions.
Monday, Pasmant declined to discuss if discipline had been handed down. Hernandez has since offered to pay for any costs incurred by the city, Pasmant said.
"He may want to reimburse the city," the city manager said. "But the real issue is, did he do the actions that he is accused of? It's not what he wants to do after the fact."
In his response to Pasmant, Hernandez wrote that he was entitled to any videos produced by the city and allowed to distribute them as Hernandez saw fit.
"Not I, nor the public need to garner permission from the City Manager regarding information that is already available to the public," Hernandez wrote.
Pasmant said Hernandez used city resources to create the 10-minute video that was distributed to his supporters then played at a City Council meeting by successive speakers. Each of the speakers admonished the council to make good on their promise to reinstate Hernandez in the mayoral rotation.
Council members rotate into the mayoral position annually. Hernandez was removed from the rotation during a nearly two-year investigation into his dealings with a car dealer.
The DA found that while Hernandez received a "significantly greater" discount than the general public, there was no evidence that he was aware of the discount and not required to report the deal as a gift.
Hernandez was accused of profiting from his purchase and subsequent sale of an SUV.
No materials have been forwarded to the DA in the video case and may not arrive until next week, authorities said.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 22, 2007
Barbs fly at council meeting;
Monterey Park councilmen Venti, Wong get heated
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
MONTEREY PARK - Accusations flew at Wednesday's City Council meeting and abruptly ended with Councilman Benjamin "Frank" Venti throwing down his microphone and storming out of the chambers.
"I'm out of here," he said.
Venti's reaction came after he was called "a liar" for questioning the interests of newly elected Councilman Anthony Wong, who volunteered for the second time to join Venti and fill the vacant seat on a Monterey Park Market Place subcommittee compromised of two council members.
Two other council members left prior to the discussion, which left only three others. The city attorney called the council meeting over after Venti left due to lack of quorum.
During the meeting, Venti said he did not want Wong serving on the subcommittee, alleging the only reason why Wong wants to be on it is to help Wong's friend, San Marino Mayor Michael Lin, make a development deal.
Lin did not return calls.
City officials have had high hopes to build the Monterey Park Market Place on a contaminated former landfill in the city for more than 20 years.
But as negotiations stall and a nearly $300 million clean-up effort on the superfund site continues, the recent spat among
council members is the newest page in this drawn out saga.
Wong, who said his primary interest in serving on the committee is because he would like to see development move forward, denied Venti's allegations.
"You are a liar," Wong told Venti.
Venti alleges that in March, Venti met with Lin along with former Councilwoman Betty Tom Chu at a restaurant. It was there that Lin allegedly brought a map of the property in question and inquired about buying it.
"A personal friend, a college buddy of Anthony Wong, expressed interest in buying the property," Venti said, adding that Wong "keeps insisting" on joining the committee.
Wong, however, mocked Venti's accusation, and laughed as Venti went on to say he did not want Wong on the committee.
"He is a funny man," Wong said of Venti on the dais. "It's very interesting. It is not true."
The council subcommittee was established four years ago, said City Manager Chris Jeffers. Two council members serve on the subcommittee, and the other seats are made up of representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency, developers and parties responsible for the contamination.
Jeffers said that purchasing the property would be a daunting task, since it could not be done without the Environmental Protection Agency's approval.
The retail site is projected to bring in $1 million in sales-tax revenue annually to the city.
Pasadena Star News, May 18, 2007
Bloggers attracting attention, threats
By Frank C. Girardot, Staff Writer
A blog that writes about local politics decided this week to fight accusations of defamation and enlisted a free speech attorney.
Foothill Cities, run by two anonymous posters, says it "[promotes] responsible, limited local government and [exposes] corruption and government waste."
The city of Pomona says the Internet Web log is nothing more than a supermarket tabloid in electronic form.
Thursday, the city threatened a defamation suit against the blog after it published posts and comments about the possible reasons for the departure of its city manager.
In response, Foothill Cities' attorney Jean-Paul Jassy, a noted West Los Angeles free-speech advocate and educator, fired back, accusing the city of intimidation.
The blog posted the response on its Web site Wednesday.
"We routinely secure major fee awards for our clients," Jassy wrote. "Including one award in excess of $100,000."
Experts say the battlefield in the dispute between government and those who cover it has morphed from disputes over the flimsy pamphlets of the 1700s to the quarrels over the transient bits and bytes of cyberspace.
Nearly two-dozen blogs cover some form of politics or life in the northeastern portion of Los Angeles County stretching from Claremont to Pasadena. Some are serious; some are not.
"Fortunately, the First Amendment covers new technologies," said Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor. "It's the message rather than the media."
The evolution of political commentary from pamphlets to newspapers to television to the Internet is not unlike the evolution of transportation from horse-drawn carriages to mag-lev trains, said Volokh, who has a group blog at Volokh Conspiracy.
"Because of technology, even individuals who don't have money can express their views," Volokh said. "There is no downside."
Foothill Cities drew the ire of Pomona officials after publishing a series of rumor-filled posts regarding the departure of City Manager Doug Dunlap. Posts, filed anonymously by bloggers Publius and Centinel, also contained several anonymous comments attacking Dunlap.
The issue came to a head last week. City Attorney Arnold Alvarez-Glasman sent a letter on city stationery via e-mail ordering the blog to "cease and desist any further publication of false information concerning the City of Pomona."
Free speech advocates question whether Alvarez-Glasman overstepped his authority and wondered what prompted the action last week.
"It seems odd for me to have a city official representing in a private matter," Glenn Reynolds, operator of the Instapundit blog, and a law professor at the University of Tennessee wrote in an e-mail. "Since government agencies can't be libeled, the claim has to be personal on the part of the City Manager. If I were a voter there, I'd be asking why my tax dollars were going to this sort of thing."
Glasman defended his actions and noted that Pomona provides stationery for his office to use in such matters. He declined to name the person who directed the letter.
"That is a matter of attorney-client privilege," Alvarez-Glasman said.
In an instant message exchange, Publius questioned Glasman's technological savvy and noted the blog has received aid and comfort from many corners of the Internet universe.
"The city attorney of Pomona, and whoever ordered him to send his threats, made a colossal mistake. It is clear from the language of his letter that he's really not up on the whole blogging thing," Publius wrote. "Simply considered as a PR move threatening us was asinine. We continue to experience a growing groundswell of support in the online community [including offers of legal assistance]."
The names Publius and Centinel are well known to historians of the American Revolution. Many believe that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay collectively used the pseudonym Publius when writing the "Federalist Papers." The name derives from a Roman ruler who 2,500 years ago introduced laws protecting individual liberty.
Centinel's writings of the late 18th century are believed to have played a role in the establishment of the Federal Bill of Rights.
"Today's bloggers, in fact, are more like the pamphleteers of the 18th century when the [First] Amendment was framed," Reynolds wrote.
Pomona officials questioned the lofty aspirations of Foothill Cities and challenged the need for anonymity.
"I could take a pseudonym of somebody that had more prestige or historical significance and be totally inaccurate," said Paula Lantz, a Pomona City Councilwoman. "Why would I give more credence or less credence to what they write by how they identify themselves?"
Lantz likened any Internet buzz over the posts, Alvarez-Glasman's letter and Foothill Cities reaction to spam chain letters that circulate from friend to friend via e-mail.
"It's like when someone forwards some cute, little anecdotal stories about Mother's Day, or Easter, or name the circumstance," Lantz said. "It went to a gazillion people because everyone that gets it turns around and clicks `send to all' and it gets sent to their entire directory of contacts and so on and so on and so on."
Pomona Mayor Norma Torres compared Foothill Cities coverage of Pomona to supermarket tabloids.
"They don't have the full picture of what's going on," she said. "I laugh at them. You know what? They are gossipers."
Lantz said she first became aware of the blog after receiving an e-mail on April 20.
"The e-mail said, `We thought you might be interested in a recent post. We're happy to publish your response or commentary on the topic," Lantz said. "It was signed, `best, Centinel."
In Sierra Madre, where several blogs, including Foothill Cities, make a point of writing about city issues, interim City Manager Don Hopper said he pays no attention.
"I don't have time to even think about them," Hopper said. "They have no merit, even though the Constitution allows them. I don't have time to engage in unproductive discussions."
Many in the blogosphere are taking up the cause of Foothill Cities.
"When, oh when, will people learn that these `cease and desist' letters will always get posted, and will always bring bad publicity to those who wrote them, unless there is a damned good reason for sending them?" writes one poster, Little Miss Attila.
Aaron Proctor, a Pasadena resident who runs the blog "Aaron Proctor for Mayor," dismissed Pomona's reaction. "Why would anybody ask a blog to stop posting stuff?" he said.
Anonymous blogger Claremont Buzz said Alvarez-Glasman's letter to Foothill Cities should have no chilling effect on others covering politics.
"As long as bloggers post responsibly and can document their information, it shouldn't change things," Claremont Buzz said in an e-mail exchange. "Maybe it's better to have to re-examine one's methods from time-to-time. It keeps one honest."
As for Publius and Centinel, they said the controversy has driven plenty of traffic to their site in recent days.
"Our readership has shot up like gangbusters because of the city's threats. The funny thing about it is we weren't trying for publicity in regards to the rumors we published," Publius wrote. "We had essentially let the matter rest - on one side, we had the city manager denying all the accusation[s], and on the other we had people still making them.
"This letter came out of nowhere, and it is a perfect example of the ineptitude of local governments when it comes to the new media."
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 17, 2007
Council action open to debate; Closed meetings an issue in Rosemead
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - City officials promised transparency and harmony when a new majority in the City Council took over after the March election.
But in the past week alone, council members may have violated open-meeting laws and made questionable commission appointments.
On May 8, the City Council met behind closed doors without staff and interviewed applicants for the traffic commission.
One week later, the new council majority - including Mayor John Tran and council members Polly Low and John Nunez - appointed five planning commissioners, including Truong Cam, the brother of Tran's girlfriend.
At the later meeting, Councilwoman Margaret Clark requested the discussion go to closed session. A lawyer for the city attorney noted the meeting had to be public.
But Clark, who has nearly 20 years on the council, appeared to contradict herself as to whether the past interviews were in open or closed session. At one point, she said that meetings were open to the public but no one showed up.
Terry Francke, a California open government law expert who helped rewrite the Ralph M. Brown Act, said holding the meetings in closed session was illegal.
"The Brown Act says that local bodies can go into closed session to discuss the employment of an employee," Francke said, "and then it goes on to specify that it does not include a legislative body."
Rosemead city staff said these meetings, including the one on May 8, were held behind closed doors.
"\ was so adamant that she ordered that staff to leave the room, including the city manager," Tran said.
City staff members confirmed they were asked not to participate in the meeting.
Clark said while she never thought it was an issue before because no one ever showed up, she believed that meetings could be held behind closed doors because commissioners, who receive stipends, are "still city employees."
Even an earlier request for documents about the appointees was denied because they were considered personnel information, said City Clerk Nina Castruita.
City Manager Andrew Lazzaretto said the city attorney later told staff the information was public.
Lazzaretto said he would also leave any questions to the city attorney to decide whether there was a Brown Act violation.
"If it was, my opinion is the council did it on the belief they did it properly, and were doing the right thing," Lazzaretto said.
City Attorney Bonny Garcia said he wouldn't speculate on the council's actions and declined to comment on the May 8 meeting.
Appointees "are part of the policy structure of government," Francke said. "You want to literally know where these people are coming from. The public is entitled to know what their qualifications are."
Planning commissioners appointed were Truong Cam, Allan Vuu, Daniel Lopez, Larry Bevington and Todd Kunioka.
The traffic commissioners appointed were Holly Knapp, Ronald Gay and Janet Chin.
Questions have since arisen over one of the appointments.
Truong Cam, 32, a five-year Rosemead resident, said he had called Tran looking for ways to get involved with the city. He is employed with the Los Angeles Housing Authority.
Tran maintains there is no conflict of interest.
"Why would it be?" Tran said. "We're not related, he is as qualified as any individual and he is a citizen of the community."
Clark said she felt it was inappropriate for Truong Cam to be appointed, considering his sister's relationship with Tran.
Tran came under fire in December when he was questioned by fellow council members as to why he used city vehicles to deliver 20 donated bicycles to children in the MacArthur Park Primary Center in Los Angeles. The teacher who received the gifts was his girlfriend, Nikkie Cam.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 16, 2007
Retaliation threatened by target of councilman's lawsuit
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
MONTEREY PARK - The man accused of publishing an anonymous political hit piece against Monterey Park Councilman Benjamin "Frank" Venti is prepared to countersue, his attorney said.
On May 8, Venti filed a lawsuit alleging Alhambra resident Melrose Castillo, 30, acted with other unnamed parties to print and mail a flier just four days before a March election.
"Obviously, my client is denying the accusations full-heartedly," said Castillo's attorney, James Paul Segall-Gutierrez. "Mr. Venti is on a witch hunt. He is throwing accusations around."
Venti was the top vote-getter in the election, but has since offered a $5,000 reward to anyone with information that will lead to the arrest and conviction for those responsible for the mailer.
In the lawsuit, he is seeking damages for defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
But Castillo and his attorney said the lawsuit - which neither have yet seen - was filed to scare Castillo into making a "false admission."
"If we are ever served with this alleged lawsuit, we will countersue for defamation of character, invasion of privacy and emotional distress," Segall-Gutierrez said. "We feel that
\ is acting like a bully."
Venti said that Castillo's response is "classic."
"It is crazy. All of a sudden the allegations are made, and he is the victim," Venti said. "If the allegations are true, then he is \ one that tried to defame my character."
The flier was distributed to nearly 4,000 people, was paid for in cash, allegedly contained forgeries of Venti's signature and the city seal, and included an address and action committee group that did not exist.
The District Attorney's Office is also investigating the mailer and distribution, which violates at least two state election laws. Venti said he chose to sue because the investigation is not moving fast enough.
David Greenberg, a Beverly Hills-based attorney specializing in personal injury litigation, said it's not considered defamation to file a lawsuit.
A court hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 4 in Pasadena.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 15, 2007
Conflict rules to be weighed West Covina councilman's proposal said to target Mayor Touhey
By Frank C. Girardot, Staff Writer
WEST COVINA - The City Council will consider tonight preventing council members from voting for projects if any council member has a financial interest.
The proposal, placed on the agenda by Councilman Roger Hernandez, will be heard at a City Hall meeting, which begins at 7 p.m.
"We have an obligation to protect the people's tax dollars and work diligently to provide systems to ensure that individual \ are not personally benefitting financially from their votes," Hernandez wrote in an e-mail Monday.
"It would make it unlawful ... to vote on any matter where a council member ... or clients would benefit financially."
West Covina Councilman Steve Herfert ridiculed Hernandez's idea as a waste of time.
"It's ridiculous to me," Herfert. "We're already governed by state law."
The proposal seems to target Mayor Mike Touhey, who at one time worked for the McIntyre Cos., a developer with several projects in West Covina.
A McIntyre proposal to build a 20-unit condominium project on South Sunset Avenue has met with vocal opposition from several neighborhood groups.
Touhey recused himself from a vote on the project.
The balance of the council voted 3-1, with Hernandez as the lone dissenter, to go ahead.
Subsequently, that vote has been revisited as the developer and residents are negotiating some changes, officials said.
"This is \ attack this week," Touhey said. "He targeted me in 2003 and said my clients couldn't work in the city of West Covina, and now he's saying my clients can't work anywhere. I guess now I'll have to go to work in Canada and Mexico."
In his e-mail, Hernandez defended his plan.
"I am confident that this proposal has the public's support as many residents have expressed strong concerns about certain companies with financial and political ties to the council repeatedly benefitting from no-bid contracts."
Whittier Daily News, May 15, 2007
Blog deletes postings regarding city manager
By Wendy Leung, Staff Writer
Calling it a fight with Goliath, the Foothill Cities blog has removed postings about Pomona City Manager Doug Dunlap after it received a cease and desist letter by the city attorney.
In an e-mail dated May 10, City Attorney Arnold Alvarez-Glasman called the Web postings "lies and falsehoods" and demanded the content be removed.
He threatened legal action if Foothill Cities, which is written by an anonymous blogger, failed to comply.
On Friday, Alvarez-Glasman said the removal of the postings was "a move in the right direction."
"The objections were to the blog and the chatter that was republished as a result of the blog," Alvarez-Glasman said.
A series of postings last month printed rumors Dunlap was being forced to resign among other accusations. Dunlap announced his retirement on April 16, and has said he had been mulling retirement for the past year.
Dunlap could not be reached Friday for comment.
In his e-mail to the Web publication, Alvarez-Glasman wrote, "The accusation that Pomona's City Manager is being forced to resign could not be further from the truth."
But the Foothill Cities blogger stressed that the accusations had always been clearly
identified as pure rumor.
In an e-mail correspondence on Friday, the blogger wrote, "The city is clearly trying to bully us, and is in the wrong, but we backed down - at least for now - because we don't want to have to deal with a lawsuit."
The blogger called Alvarez-Glasman's demand "stifling."
"It means we have to start watching our backs every time we post something critical about city officials," the blogger wrote.
Foothill Cities is a political blog about cities in the Inland and San Gabriel valleys.
Alvarez-Glasman said on Friday the city supports First Amendment rights but the Web publication also has a duty to print responsible journalism.
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"The credence that one puts behind this publication is no greater than the National Enquirer," he said.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 12, 2007
Petition to oust Vasquez served Council member's foe erupts at city meeting
By Sandra T. Molina, Staff Writer
MONTEBELLO - Montebello Councilwoman Rosie Vasquez was served with a notice of intent to circulate a petition to recall her by a resident during Wednesday's City Council meeting.
Sally Torres, who ran unsuccessfully for the council in 2005, presented the notice to the councilwoman during oral communications.
"She has aggressively attacked and violated the free speech of the citizens of Montebello," Torres said before handing the notice to the city clerk.
As Torres left the podium, Vasquez called out, "You're a liar." She later apologized for that outburst.
"When you recall someone," she said, "you have to state reasons, but you don't have to lie."
The notice, which had 30 signatures, accuses Vasquez, who was elected to her first term in November 2005, of breaching her fiduciary responsibility to the city and ignoring the rules of decorum for City Council meetings.
Vasquez said that she is not afraid of the recall because she has been very careful spending the city's money and is very respectful of the democratic process.
She surmised that recall effort is in retaliation to her being a strong proponent of a petition that would allow voters to decide on whether the
city should eliminate the city's fire department in favor of county services.
She said she believes the recall attempt will backfire on those behind it because it is baseless.
However, Vasquez said she will consult an attorney about handling the matter.
The councilwoman has seven days to respond to the notice of intent.
This is the second recall effort for the city this year.
In April, Montebello Citizens for Honest Government delivered its own notice of intent to circulate a petition to the council majority of Mayor Norma Lopez-Reid, Bob Siccama and Bob Bagwell.
The group said it was angry at the majority's action in firing numerous department heads since its election in 2005 and was disturbed about the fire department issue.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 11, 2007
Mailer rattles Rosemead residents Councilwoman's claims are denied by city staff
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - The distribution of a flier to hundreds of residents by Councilwoman Margaret Clark was misleading, some council members said Wednesday.
More than 150 angry residents filled the council chambers on Tuesday and spilled over to the lobby, all to protest a reduction in fence heights.
The proposal recommended that any new construction of fences would have to adhere to a 36-inch height, not the existing 48 inches. And according to Clark's flier, "City staff is recommending that every fence above three feet in your front yard will have to be replaced at the homeowner's expense."
Au contraire, city staff said Tuesday night. The existing fences would be grandfathered into the guidelines.
"There is no word that in there that says that we would have staff measure fences and have people tear it down," Councilman John Nunez said. "Those people were actually scared. They were ready to go to war."
At a time where council members have said they want to push the divisive Wal-Mart issue aside, the discussion at Tuesday's meeting proved this feat won't come easy.
"I am utterly disgusted and disappointed that Mrs. Clark, a veteran councilmember, would use such scare tactics to
mislead, deceive and misinform the public," Mayor John Tran said.
Councilwoman Polly Low said she was disappointed in Clark and her decision to send out inaccurate information.
Clark said the flier is a reaction to the silencing she felt she's endured by the city staff.
"Staff does not understand their role," Clark said Wednesday. "The people are the boss."
But some questioned whether the move was her way of setting the stage for her reelection.
"I'm questioning her motive, and the conclusion I'm coming to," Nunez said, "is if it's not political, then it's self-serving."
Clark said Nunez's comment was "stupid."
Many in attendance Tuesday displayed the fliers, signed by Clark and paid for by Rosemead Partners, which is backed by Wal-Mart consultant Mike Lewis.
The mailer states, "Attention Homeowners! Rosemead City Staff is threatening to make you tear you fence down! Your front yard fence could be illegal!!!"
Many of the residents cheered and sided with Clark, thanking her for looking out for them.
Maggie Venitas was among the first of nearly 15 residents to speak on the issue.
She said that her fence is the only thing that protecting her family last week when a drunken driver plowed through the fence and nearly hit their home.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 10, 2007
Arraignment is Tuesday for current and former officials
By Marisela Santana, Staff Writer
LYNWOOD -- The arraignment of two current and three former council members is expected to take place Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. at Compton Superior Court, Division 12, before Judge John J. Cheroske.
Mayor Louis Byrd and Mayor Pro Tem Fernando Pedroza, along with former council members Ricardo Sanchez, Arturo Reyes and Armando Rea, were each charged by the District Attorney's Public Integrity Division with one count each of misappropriating public funds.
Prosecutors have charged the five of enriching themselves with taxpayer dollars.
The five allegedly misappropriated public funds under several schemes, including charging personal expenses on city credit cards and for paying themselves for attending two city meetings, the Lynwood Public Finance Authority and the Lynwood Information Inc.
City Council members preside over those two agencies and are paid $1,800 a month. Most meetings last about five minutes and have been criticized by residents in the city for years.
"This case is another example of the Public Integrity Division aggressively investigating and prosecuting schemes for self-enrichment by elected officials at the expense of hard-working taxpayers," District Attorney Steve Cooley said after the charges were filed last month
According to the district attorney's office, the council members allegedly authorized themselves to be paid $450 per meeting. In 2000 and 2001, council members earned up to $40,000 annually in addition to their council pay from both agency meetings, which translates to about 80 to 90 meetings annually.
"We contend the work they were doing on these agencies was part of their council work, and they weren't allowed to pay themselves extra fees," said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney.
Joel Isaacson, attorney for Pedroza and Rea, said the district attorney's office has been selective in its investigation and questions why only those five individuals were named in their criminal complaint, when there clearly have been other council members who were paid for the meetings.
"That's going to play into the entire score of the case," Isaacson said. "How is it that they weren't charged? If it's OK now, why was it wrong earlier?"
In 2004, then Councilman Ramon Rodriguez and current Councilwoman Maria Santillan tried to reduce the pay of $450 a piece for the meetings to $150 but could not get a third vote.
Pedroza has publicly defended himself from any of the charges and has said that he believes the charges are a political vendetta against him.
At Tuesday's arraignment, the five will enter pleas and a date could be set for a preliminary hearing, where Judge Cheroske will determine if there is sufficient evidence against the defendants to move to trial.
Isaacson said there are "certainly statute of limitations issues" he will address.
"As far as we're concerned, we know that the D.A. had constructive knowledge of the credit card abuse prior to April 13, 2003," he said. As far as the meetings go, the attorney said, those meetings were approved by the city attorney and by the management of the city.
"That's the thrust of the case," he said. "It will be established that [the council members] were clearly advised that it was lawful and proper that they be paid for their efforts on the two agencies and that it is unfair that they be charged criminally for something they were told they could do."
At the April 17 City Council meeting, Santillan asked Byrd to include the Lynwood Public Finance Authority and the Lynwood Information Inc. on the May 1 City Council meeting agenda for discussion. She also asked that he place the deputies the council majority approved for themselves last year on the agenda. However, neither of the three items were placed on the agenda.
Los Angeles Wave, May 10, 2007
City approves contract for attorney
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - The Rosemead City Council on Tuesday approved a contract for an attorney whose firm also represents a school district suing the city.
Bonifacio "Bonny" Garcia of Los Angeles-based firm Garcia, Calderon and Ruiz, was hired April 3, after longtime city attorney Peter Wallin resigned.
Garcia has been working without a contract since then.
Councilman John Nunez recommended that Garcia, who has been a lawyer for more than 25 years, serve as city attorney. The council did not consider any other attorneys.
"He is very good at telling people when you are wrong, and he is fair," Nunez said Wednesday. Nunez said he also appreciates the ethnic diversity at the firm.
Nunez said he encouraged Garcia to apply for the position.
The same day that Garcia's appointment was approved, 3-2, he sat in a closed session meeting that discussed anticipated litigation against Nunez for an alleged sexual harassment claim, although a separate attorney has been assigned since then to handle that lawsuit.
While some staff members and residents previously expressed surprise at the council's decision not to take the contract out to bid, others said they wondered whether the firm's
representation of the Garvey School District, which is suing the city over the construction of Wal-Mart, was a conflict of interest.
Though the law firm is the general counsel to the district, none of its attorneys has ever represented the district or have privileged information regarding the existing lawsuit, according to the contract.
Furthermore, the contract was drafted in a way that would avoid any such conflict, Garcia said.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 10, 2007
Temple City gets lesson from folks
A funny thing happened to Temple City on the way to reaching out to unincorporated county neighbors. It got its hand slapped.
Homeowners living to the north in unincorporated San Gabriel told Temple City thanks, but no thanks, to annexation. It's interesting to see county residents who pay a utility users tax turn down joining a city without one. Despite a tax cut, vocal county residents - part of 9,000 or so living southeast of Huntington Drive and Rosemead
Boulevard - said they wanted to stay as county unincorporated residents because the county does a better job
controlling mansionization, developing reasonable commercial centers and responding to citizen issues.
This is a definite case of going against the grain.
Usually, we support annexation because cities can be more responsive with a nearby City Hall than the county whose supervisors meet in downtown Los Angeles. Also, cities usually have stricter development controls. And cities usually have better, more convenient services and programs.
We won't argue which one is better in this case. Clearly, Temple City is a very desirable address, with its excellent schools, fine housing stock, low crime
rate and Mayberry-like atmosphere. So is north San Gabriel - so, point well taken.
But if there are lessons to learn, it is for Temple City's government. It ought to listen to what its critics are saying. The city's image has been tarnished by an uneven handling of the Piazza Las Tunas shopping center development, with construction still stalled. Lawsuits of sexual harassment from former city management don't help either. Neither does a deteriorating Las Tunas Drive with a plethora of
bridal shops and nail salons that don't make for a healthy retail mix.
Still, Temple City has done a lot right. But it has a long way to go to get better. It should work on polishing its image by practicing professional, open government and by attracting quality commercial development.
Finally, it can shine some light into what is a network of cronyism by hiring a new city manager, instead of one that doubles as city attorney, a clear conflict of interest. It can allow its city council meetings to be shown on local cable television. As long as council members use the tired excuse - that televising prolongs the length of council meetings - to keep the sunlight out of City Hall, it will see its
reflection in the eyes of its unincorporated neighbors.
And it won't be the fairest city of them all.
Pasadena Star News, May 8, 2007
DA's Office tosses complaint
Time statute prohibits probe of mayor, city attorney
By Frank C. Girardot, Staff Writer
WEST COVINA - The District Attorney's Office made short work Friday of a complaint against the mayor and city attorney, saying the accusations stemmed from events beyond the statute of limitations for possible criminal conflicts of interest.
The complaint, filed in late April by West Covina resident Norma Martinez, claimed Mayor Mike Touhey and City Attorney Arnold Alvarez-Glasman engaged in "questionable business and ethical practices" in 2000 and 2001.
State law requires that most political misconduct prosecutions begin within four years of a crime's commission, Deputy District Attorney David Demerjian said.
Martinez said she assembled a package of documents for the DA with some help from Councilman Roger Hernandez and a group of residents she declined to identify. Martinez is a Hernandez appointment to the city's Community Services Commission.
Hernandez declined Friday to discuss Martinez's complaint.
"I'd rather not make a comment," Hernandez said.
Both Touhey and Alvarez-Glasman denied any wrongdoing.
"Desperate people do desperate things," Alvarez-Glasman said. "It's absurd and the allegations by Ms. Martinez are nothing more than an effort on behalf of
others to drag through the mud my name and names of others for political purposes."
Touhey said he welcomed any inquiry.
"I'm used to this," Touhey said. "It's not the first time Roger has raised these issues."
Martinez's letter to Demerjian, dated April 27, includes complaints over a Wal-Mart deal in Baldwin Park; a $12million senior housing project in West Covina; and a lucrative billboard contract with Montebello.
A similar letter and file of supporting documents were sent to the state bar asking for an investigation into Alvarez-Glasman.
In an interview Friday, Martinez said she acted out of care for the community.
"I really want to be seen as concerned citizen," she said, "not labeled as somebody who has a grudge."
Among the documents are agendas of city council meetings from West Covina, Baldwin Park and Montebello.
Additionally, the complaint included copies of Touhey's financial disclosure forms and a copy of a contract between Montebello and Ken Spiker and Associates, a billboard construction company, once a client of Touhey.
The complaint marked the latest in a series of volleys fired between the City Council and Hernandez. Earlier in the week, the council asked the DA to open an investigation into Hernandez's alleged use of city staff to produce a DVD regarding the council's mayoral rotation.
As of Friday, Demerjian's office had not received the city's complaint against Hernandez.
Touhey voted with the council to submit to the DA the complaint against Hernandez; to close the councilman's office in City Hall, and deny Hernandez's request to be returned to the mayoral rotation.
A check of public records acts requests made at West Covina City Hall indicated that neither Hernandez nor Martinez had filed written requests for any of the documents included in the package.
City Clerk Sue Rush said she gets several verbal requests for documents, which is allowed under the state's public open public records act.
"Roger's been pulling these documents out from the City Clerk's office," Touhey said. "These absolutely came from him or from one of his little cohorts or supporters."
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 5, 2007
West Covina council pushes for Hernandez investigation
By Frank C. Girardot, Staff Writer
WEST COVINA - The rift between Roger Hernandez and his City Council colleagues widened late Tuesday with council votes to take away Hernandez's City Hall office and to ask for a District Attorney's Office investigation into his use of city staff.
Hernandez voted for the investigation, saying he had done nothing wrong in connection with the production of a DVD by city staff regarding the council mayoral rotation.
City Manager Andrew Pasmant said Wednesday he will prepare information for the District Attorney's Office. Pasmant said Hernandez used city resources to create a 10-minute video that was distributed to his supporters.
Two unidentified members of the city staff were disciplined for their roles in creating the video, Pasmant said Tuesday night. Pasmant did not reveal the nature of the discipline.
"There's an unwritten code of conduct where you don't drag staff into the political," Pasmant said.
Mayor Mike Touhey, Councilman Steve Herfert and Councilwoman Shelley Sanderson also supported the measure. Councilwoman Sherri Lane was absent.
Touhey, Herfert and Sanderson voted to take away Hernandez's City Hall office. The vote also prevents other council members from
having individual private offices. Hernandez is the only member of the council to ever have a private office at City Hall, Pasmant said.
"That's been removed from him," Touhey said. "He will have to go back to sharing an office - that's not under lock and key - with the rest of us."
And, by the 3-1 margin, the council refused to consider returning Hernandez to the mayoral rotation.
"We don't need a reason to put somebody in the rotation," Sanderson said.
As many as 200 people attended Tuesday night's meeting. Touhey said eight officers were on hand to maintain crowd control. At least one minor altercation broke out between residents, Touhey said.
No arrests were made, officials said.
A total of 39 residents addressed the council on a variety of topics ranging from graffiti abatement to a proposed condominium development to their thoughts on Hernandez.
Several residents thought Hernandez should be returned to the mayoral rotation. He was removed after the Public Integrity Division of the DA's Office began an investigation of the councilman in 2005. At the time the council voted to suspend Hernandez's rise to mayor pending the outcome of the investigation.
In March, Hernandez was cleared. He and his supporters claimed he should be returned to the rotation.
"I want to remind the council of its promises," said resident Natalie Mendoza. "This investigation was cleared. That happened. Now what? It seems that you are searching for any excuse you can find to put Council[man] Hernandez out of the succession."
The public comment portion of the meeting was punctuated by cheering and heckling.
"I feel like this was a pay-per-view event," Touhey said. "I need a cut man and a block of ice. I definitely need a promoter, because Tuesday night was like a 15-round fight. The end result is bad for the city."
By the meeting's end, at nearly 1 a.m. Wednesday, city officials were so tired they had no clear consensus what exactly happened in a vote to return the council's individual debit cards.
Sanderson and Pasmant said they thought a motion to return the debit cards passed unanimously. City Clerk Sue Rush had to review a tape of the meeting to discover that was not so.
Touhey said the motion was tabled for another hearing later this month.
Hernandez, who declined to comment for this story, asked for a retraction of a quote that appeared in this newspaper Tuesday regarding the mayoral rotation: "It has everything to do with preventing a Latino from attaining the post. I'm asking for what's fair and due to me. There is a law in this city that says every councilmember gets a turn."
The newspaper stands by its report, Executive Editor Steve O'Sullivan said Wednesday.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, May 3, 2007
Disorderly conduct
`DEMOCRACY is a form of government which may be rationally defended, not as being good, but as being less bad than any other," wrote William Ralph Inge in 1919.
Given that definition, perhaps we are too harsh when we grow impatient with city governments like the ones that exist in Pico Rivera and Montebello.
Right now, both cities are in the midst of transitions in their city attorneys and, in our opinion, both are doing a rather messy job of it.
In Pico Rivera, City Attorney James M. Casso earlier this month resigned just before the City Council was to vote on his termination.
Two days after Casso resigned, the council voted 4-1 in a closed personnel session to hire their sole applicant for the job, veteran municipal lawyer Arnold Alvarez-Glasman, as their new city attorney.
At the time, Mayor Ron Beilke explained there was an urgency to fill the position because several city projects were falling behind.
"We wanted to move quickly," Beilke was quoted.
For once, we found ourselves siding with the lone dissenter in the 4-1 vote to hire Alvarez-Glasman.
Councilman David Armenta said he voted against the appointment because the position was not put out for
bid. Rarely, if ever, have we agreed with Armenta before.
"I didn't know until the day before that we already had an applicant to vote on," Armenta said. "I think the people deserve an open and competitive process."
At the very least, the Pico Rivera City Council could have taken Alvarez-Glasman on a temporary retainer while a proper search was conducted. While Alvarez-Glasman has significant depth of experience with more than a half-dozen cities, he also was fired by Montebello.
Speaking of Montebello, we are also quite confused about what is going on in that city regarding its recent vote to appoint J. Arnoldo Beltran as its new city attorney, replacing Marco Martinez, who was fired.
Beltran was hired in February by a majority vote of Jeff Siccima, Bill Molinari and Rosie Vasquez, with Bob Bagwell and Norma Lopez-Reid opposed.
However, many weeks have passed and still Beltran's contract remains unsigned. Why the contract has not been signed - making the hiring official - remains unexplained.
As mayor, Lopez-Reid is authorized to sign all contracts approved by the council. However, she hasn't signed and says she has "personal reservations" about Beltran. The mayor pro tem, Molinari, calls this an illegal action.
At this juncture, with the Beltran contract favorably voted upon but unsigned, it is quite apparent how factionalized governing councils can easily lose sight of good sense and the greater good of the community.
About all we can say is that it looks like the Montebello City Council will need a good lawyer to get out of this one.
Pasadena Star News, April 27, 2007
DA requests council minutes Complaint spurs probe
By Frank C. Girardot, Staff Writer
MONTEBELLO - The District Attorney's office Thursday requested the minutes of a City Council meeting at which City Attorney J. Arnoldo Beltran was hired.
Deputy District Attorney David Demerjian, head of the Public Integrity Division, said the request was initiated after a complaint was received about an alleged violation of the Ralph M. Brown Act, the state's open meeting law. The investigation was opened March 16, he said.
"We will normally want to look at the agenda and minutes and a video recording or a tape recording - if there is such a thing," Demerjian said. "Normally a review of these items resolves the issue."
He declined to say who made the complaint.
The Feb. 6 special meeting agenda included a discussion of a housing bond in open session. The council then adjourned to closed session and voted 3-2 to retain the services of Beltran.
Minutes of the 3 p.m. meeting were not available Thursday and won't be available until they are approved by the council, said a spokeswoman for the city clerk's office.
The council reported out of the closed session that council members Rosie Vasquez, Jeff Siccama and Bill Molinari voted for Beltran while Mayor Norma Lopez-Reid and Councilman
Bill Bagwell voted against.
In a subsequent meeting, Bagwell later joined the majority in a 4-0 vote to authorize Beltran's contract. Lopez-Reid abstained and has since refused to sign Beltran's contract.
Beltran had no comment Thursday on the DA's probe.
"I think if the DA wants to come in and take a close look and scrutinize, I'm for it," Lopez-Reid said. "It will help the city in the long run. Some of us, who haven't done anything wrong, know we're fine."
Open government law expert Terry Francke of Californians Aware said it would be hard to pinpoint what the investigators are seeking. But, it's likely something may have happened in closed session to trigger a complaint and the probe, he said.
It's possible that "a member of the council or somebody else with personal knowledge tipped the DA that something improper went on there," Francke said.
As mayor, Lopez-Reid's signature is required to approve all contracts before they take effect. Lopez-Reid said she declined to sign Beltran's contract because of personal reservations.
"I didn't vote for the man and I have reservations about \," Lopez-Reid said.
Molinari, meanwhile, said Thursday that the council should schedule a special meeting to hold Lopez-Reid accountable for her inaction.
"What this amounts to is an illegal action to force Mr. Beltran to resign," Molinari said. "There's no justification for this conduct."
Molinari would be able to sign Beltran's contract in the event of Lopez-Reid's absence from the city or incapacitation.
Lopez-Reid urged Molinari to go ahead and sign the deal.
"Maybe if we do have a special meeting we can designate him to sign the contact," Lopez-Reid said.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, April 27, 2007
Plan for 710 Freeway connector back on agenda in Los Angeles
By Patricia Jiayi Ho, Staff Writer
ALHAMBRA - It's back.
Alhambra residents and officials thought the proposal for a connector road from the current end of the Long Beach (710) Freeway to Mission Road was dead, but this week they were alarmed to learn Los Angeles will soon release a draft Environmental Impact Report on the project.
"You don't need an EIR to know that this is not a good project. It is so blatantly a bad idea," said Anna Emerald, who lives on Westminster Avenue, one of the residential streets that would be impacted. "We would be slaughtered with thousands of cars, smog, pollution and noise."
Though the the 710 Freeway terminus on Valley Boulevard already creates a traffic headache for Alhambra, the connector road would carry traffic another 1,400 feet onto Mission Road, possibly sending 40,000 cars daily winding through residential streets like Westminster and Meridian Avenue.
The road would alleviate traffic problems through some El Sereno neighborhoods, Los Angeles officials said.
Mission, a collector street, is not as wide as Valley, an arterial street, said Public Works Director Mary Swink.
"We really are concerned that the cut through traffic is going to kill that neighborhood," Swink said.
Proponents of a full freeway connector are also worried the connector would hurt their political momentum.
Effort is better spent on the tunnel proposal to complete the 710 Freeway, said Alhambra Councilwoman Barbara Messina.
"I'm surprised that it's coming back. Everybody seems to be on board with the tunnel," Messina said. "We should concentrate on something positive instead of always looking for obstacles."
The tunnel study has entered its second phase, with possible routes and ground composition examined in greater detail. The tunnel would go under parts of Alhambra, South Pasadena and to the Foothill (210) Freeway in Pasadena.
The connector road was first proposed in the 1990s and again in 2004. It would be built in Los Angeles, with two lanes in each direction. Heading north, it would end with two right-turn lanes leading to Alhambra, said John Koo, group manager of bridge projects for Los Angeles.
Estimated to cost $20 million, the road would be temporary and would go under existing railroad tracks, Koo said. Residents from both Alhambra and the El Sereno neighborhood in Los Angeles have spoken against it.
He said the road would provide another access point to the 710 Freeway for El Sereno residents.
Koo said the EIR had never been halted. It will be released for public review in coming weeks, he said.
"I would call the connector road ill-advised at this time," said Assemblyman Mike Eng, D-Monterey Park. "We need to stay focused on the tunneling proposal."
Los Angeles Councilman Jose Huizar said he wants to see the connector road EIR before he takes a position on it.
"I fully support the tunnel," he said. "I believe we must alleviate the regional traffic concerns. At the same time I would not support an above-ground extension."
Huizar added that he wants to keep the options open and would like to see the tunnel studied together with the connector road.
"It may be once we have more information on the tunnel that a connector road may not be necessary," he said. "But we still need full information."
The 710 Freeway has been a lightning rod issue in Alhambra for decades. The city attorney has standing directions from the City Council to comb through the draft EIR, submit comments in opposition, and possibly challenge the connector road on legal grounds.
"We're going to use whatever means necessary to protect our residents," said City Manager Julio Fuentes. "We're not going to sit idly by and watch."
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, April 26, 2007
Nunez faced harassment claim in '96
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - Years before Councilman John Nunez was accused of sexually harassing a city employee, the wife of a Garvey school board member claimed that Nunez made inappropriate comments about the size of her breasts.
The sexual harassment claim, filed in 1996, was stopped from going further when Nunez apologized to Gloria Garcia and her husband, former Garvey and Alhambra School Board member Robert Miranda, according documents obtained from the Garvey School District. Nunez assured them that "nothing of this nature will ever happen again," according to the documents.
Nunez said Thursday that the issue had been resolved long ago.
"It was a private conversation. I never said it to her, I never touched her," said Nunez, adding that he did not think the situation constituted sexual harassment.
On April 12, Valerie Mazone, a Rosemead city employee, filed a lawsuit against Nunez alleging sexually harassment. Nunez has declined to comment on the pending case.
The lawsuit, which also names the city as a defendant, alleges that Nunez sexually harassed Mazone since September 2005.
The suit states that Nunez massaged her, leered at her, and "on one occasion looked directly into her
blouse in an attempt to observe Plaintiff's breasts."
Mazone filed a claim with the city March 8. City Manager Andrew Lazzaretto said he hired private investigator Tess Elconin to look into the allegations the same day.
The city paid Elconin $10,000 for a three-week-long investigation. Lazzaretto said no written report was issued to the City Council and no documents from the investigation will be made public to "avoid embarrassment."
Elconin reported her findings to the council in a closed session meeting, Lazzaretto said. He would not elaborate on what findings were made.
The City Council will defend Nunez and the city with the Joint Powers Insurance Agency.
Nunez has spent nearly 20 years in public office, most of that time serving on the Garvey School District. He left the Alhambra School District in 2005 after being elected to the Rosemead City Council.
Alhambra officials said there were no lawsuits, settlements, or claims filed against Nunez while he was an Alhambra Unified School District board member.
At the Garvey School District, two separate complaints were filed by Miranda and his wife, Garcia, in August and September 1996. At the time, Miranda's wife was employed at Arlene Bitely Elementary School in Rosemead.
"Board member John Nunez made sexual comments about my wife and me in the presence of two district employees," Miranda's complaint, dated Sept. 13, 1996, stated.
Both Miranda and Garcia requested an apology from Nunez.
A letter dated Sept. 17 from then-Superintendent Alex Yusem confirmed that Nunez apologized to both Miranda and Garcia, "and stated nothing of this nature will ever happen again."
The letter said that the complaint was in reference to a conversation between Nunez, former business manager Anita Suazo and former Superintendent Rolland Boceta.
"During that conversation Mr. Nunez stated the reason Mr. Miranda married Mrs. Miranda was because the size of her breasts," the complaint stated.
Neither Miranda nor Garcia returned calls for comment.
Nunez said he wondered whether the complaint in 1996 goes back to personal disagreements he and Miranda have had since the 1980s.
"He has a problem with me," Nunez said.
Miranda and Nunez sat together on the Garvey and Alhambra school boards and fought on opposite sides of three separate lawsuits. They also publicly sparred over expenses while on the Garvey School District.
Miranda and Nunez attacked one another publicly regarding spending public money at restaurants and bars, according to past Tribune articles. Questionable expenditures were found in both cases, but the district only demanded that Miranda pay $89 because Nunez lost his seat on the board in the election, the published reports stated.
Pasadena Star News, April 23, 2007
Pico Rivera council hires city attorney
By Pam Wight, Staff Writer
PICO RIVERA - Pico Rivera City Council members have hired attorney Arnold Alvarez-Glasman as the city attorney, replacing their former city attorney who resigned earlier this week. The selection was made in a 4-1 vote during a special closed-door meeting Thursday.
Alvarez-Glasman did not return calls seeking comment Friday.
Councilman David Armenta, who cast the only dissenting vote, said Friday he opposed the choice mainly because "the process should have been open and competitive."
He criticized the council for not putting the job out for bid. He also said the council rushed to select Alvarez-Glasman.
"I didn't know until the day before that we already had an applicant to vote on," Armenta said. That sole application was from Alvarez-Glasman, he said.
"I think the people deserve an open and competitive process. All law firms have their proposals established, and we could have the whole thing taken care of in two to three weeks, max," he said. "This was already planned by someone. It was so last minute."
Mayor Ron Beilke said there was an urgency to fill the post because several city projects are falling behind schedule.
"We didn't want any down time. We wanted to move quickly," he said.
Beilke said his decision was based mostly on the staff's recommendation of Alvarez-Glasman because they'd worked with him before. Plus, the city will pay less for Alvarez-Glasman's services, he added.
The attorney requested a $7,500 retainer, $750 less than was paying the Meyers Nave of Los Angeles, according to a staff report.
Former City Attorney James M. Casso submitted his resignation early Tuesday before the council was to vote on his termination that evening.
Councilman Gregory Salcido characterized Alvarez-Glasman's firm as a "boutique law firm" - as opposed to a "full-service" law firm like Meyers Nave - but he said most attorney costs are similar in the end.
"My only problem is that some council members are using economics to justify their decision, when it's really about politics," Salcido said. "I didn't like how the entire council was not a part of the preliminary conversations. I was not a part of it."
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, April 21, 2007
City reviewing law firm proposals
Frank C. Girardot, Staff Writer
WEST COVINA - The City Council plans to review proposals from several law firms seeking to represent the city in areas ranging from code enforcement to workers' compensation.
City officials are paging through 28 separate proposals covering four specific areas of legal expertise.
"In essence it's good to have the city go through this every so often," said Chris Freeland, assistant to the city manager. "It's an opportunity to make sure we are getting value for these services."
The review of the law firms' plans began Monday and will conclude in a public meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Three proposals deal with city prosecutions, including code enforcement, environmental law and the filing of some criminal complaints, such as traffic infractions and misdemeanors.
Seven proposals offer legal services in the area of personnel and labor law; 10 deal with defending the city against liability lawsuits; seven offer services defending the city in workers' compensation cases; and one proposal offers to cover the city's legal needs in both general liability cases and workers' compensation.
Officials expect to use a dim sum approach to choosing these services, picking firms that specialize
in specific areas of liability or compensation.
"We might pick one firm to represent us in slope failure and another to handle civil rights claims," Freeland said.
In addition to City Attorney Arnold Alvarez-Glasman, West Covina uses the services of at least five firms in litigation involving the city. The city is also covered for some legal services by an insurance policy through the Joint Powers Insurance Authority, City Manager Andrew Pasmant said. That policy covers claims over $1 million, according to Debbie Domingues, the city's safety and claims manager.
It has been several years since the city undertook a comprehensive look at its legal representation. "This is a good thing to do," Pasmant said.
Among the firms submitting proposals to act as city prosecutor is Burke, Williams and Sorensen. Rosemead's new city attorney, Bonifacio Garcia, a former attorney with the firm, had his billings called into question last year. The San Diego Union-Tribune learned he had billed the Sweetwater School District in San Diego County for as much as 15.3 hours in a day, and $131,708 between July 1, 2005 and the end of May 2006.
Garcia left Burke, Williams and Sorensen late last year and was recently appointed to represent Rosemead. Other firms that submitted city prosecutor proposals are Best, Best and Krieger; Burke; and Jones and Meyer.
Best, Best and Krieger would charge $185 per hour for their services. Burke, Williams and Sorensen billing would be $225 per hour for the services of a partner; $175 per hour for an associate; $150 per hour for a clerk; and $125 per hour for a paralegal.
Jones and Meyer, which currently represents the city, would charge a flat rate of $160 per hour, according to their proposal.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, April 16, 2007
Rosemead councilman faces sexual harassment lawsuit
By Frank C. Girardot and Jennifer McLain, Staff Writers
ROSEMEAD - A female city employee filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging Councilman John Nunez sexually harassed her for more than a year at City Hall.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, alleges Valeria Mazone, who works in the city's finance department, was harassed by Nunez starting in the summer of 2005 - shortly after Nunez was elected to the City Council - and continuing through March.
Nunez had little comment on the lawsuit Thursday.
"We were told not to talk about it," Nunez said. "I would love to sit here and tell you my side, but when somebody sues the city, we've got to refer it to the city attorney."
The lawsuit claims other employees have complained about Nunez's behavior. Mazone also alleges Nunez has a history of sexual harassment claims dating to his days as a member of the Garvey School District Board.
"Defendant Nunez was sued for sexual harassment while he was employed by the Garvey School District," the suit claims.
Garvey Superintendent Virginia Peterson said she was unaware of any claims against Nunez.
The district has yet to respond to a request for any claims, settlements or lawsuits filed against Nunez during his years as a school board member.
Rosemead City Attorney Bonifacio Garcia, who also represents the Garvey School District, said neither he nor his firm had defended Nunez in any sexual harassment complaint where the district or Nunez were named defendants.
Nunez also briefly served as a member of the Alhambra Unified School District Board. At Alhambra, there was no record of complaints against Nunez, school officials said.
Garcia said he had not seen the current suit and declined to comment. The lawsuit will likely be defended through an outside attorney hired by the city's insurance carrier, Garcia said.
Oliver Chi, Rosemead's deputy city manager, said the city had anticipated the lawsuit. The council met in closed session April 3 and April 10 to prepare for it, Chi added.
"We will absolutely be responding," Chi said Thursday, adding that he had not yet seen a copy of the lawsuit.
Chi said the day after the claim was filed that the city hired a private investigator.
"We wanted to make sure that there was no question that we were swaying one way or another," Chi said. "We're not trying to protect the councilman. We're trying to find out the truth."
The lawsuit claims Nunez "started sexually harassing (Mazone) by, among other things, touching her on almost every occasion he saw her."
Mazone describes one incident where Nunez "aggressively grabbed" her and "hugged her close to his body."
In January, the lawsuit claims Nunez came up behind Mazone and "started to massage her shoulders."
The lawsuit describes another incident where Nunez approached Mazone, "grabbed her and attempted to kiss (Mazone) on the lips. (She) quickly turned her face and was kissed on the cheek instead."
Mazone's attorney, Gregory W. Smith, has filed several similar claims against government entities and employers. Among his clients is former Covina police Officer Vic Lupu, who filed suit against the city alleging he was discriminated against and subjected to harassment for having a physical disability caused by methampethamine abuse. Lupu lost the case and appealed using another law firm, according to court documents.
As Rosemead grapples with the lawsuit, City Manager Andrew Lazzaretto said it will not disrupt City Hall.
"I don't want to make it sound like it will be business as usual," Lazzaretto said, "but we have to stay focused on the day-to-day responsibilities."
Pasadena Star News, April 14, 2007 and San Gabriel Valley Tribune, April 13, 2007
Records do the talking
Big changes have come to Montebello's city government, and they're coming at a lightning pace. But do they signal improvement, or are they evidence for concern?
Recently, the City Council has fired Community Development Director Ruben Lopez, fire Chief Jim Cox, City Attorney Marco Lopez and, just last month, City Administrator Richard Torres.
After serving 18 years, Torres wasn't dismissed for cause, so the council's impatience for "fresh blood" and a "different direction" will cost the city an estimated $200,000.
But of equal interest are the City Council's new hires - Arnoldo Beltran as city attorney and Randy Narramore, Huntington Park's former police chief, as interim city administrator.
We've seen this type of rapid overhaul before. It often begins with the marriage of elected officials to a politically powerful attorney.
For example, South Gate's suffering began with a change in its City Council, which produced a new three-vote majority that ceded power to city treasurer Albert Robles.
Allied with city attorney Salvador Alva, Robles brought in a new city manager, with no experience, and a new police chief. After plundering $20 million from city coffers, Robles was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
Similarly, Huntington Park Mayor Edward Escareno hired Francisco Leal as city attorney. Later, Escareno was charged with misappropriation of public funds and convicted of felony grand theft.
In Lynwood, longtime mayor Paul Richards was sentenced to 16 years in prison for municipal corruption, while Beltran, his city attorney, continues in office.
Bell Gardens Councilwoman Maria Chacon also partnered with Beltran, creating an ordinance that allowed Chacon to become city manager.
After the DA charged Chacon with criminal conflict of interest for her vote approving the ordinance, her unsuccessful defense was that Beltran advised her she could.
These incidents weren't entirely unexpected.
Back in 1999, a Los Angeles Times story included allegations that Beltran and Leal had threatened to launch recall campaigns against councilmembers in Lynwood, Commerce and Bell Gardens, if they refused to award city attorney contracts to their law firm.
L.A. Weekly reported that Jesse Jauregui, former partner of Beltran and Leal, said of his former colleagues, "I'm glad to no longer be a part of Tammany Hall-style politics," a reference to Boss Tweed's infamous New York political machine.
So, just what was in the minds of Montebello councilmembers when they voted to employ Beltran as city attorney and Escareno's police chief as interim city administrator?
Whatever the answer, it's hard to gain comfort from reports that Councilwoman Rosie Vasquez was not concerned about Beltran's qualifications or that Mayor Norma Lopez-Reid had been "very impressed" by Narramore, a subject in several well-publicized discrimination lawsuits filed against the Huntington Park police department by minority officers.
If nothing else, it's certainly a time for the people of Montebello to remain attentive.
Richard P. McKee is past-president of Californians Aware and a La Verne resident.
Whittier Daily News, April 14, 2007
D.A. targets corruption in Lynwood; 5 indicted
By Hector Becerra, Times Staff Writer
Five current and former Lynwood City Council members were indicted Thursday for allegedly using hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funds to illegally boost their salaries, pay for personal expenses and even hire an exotic dancer at a "gentleman's club."
The charges are the latest lumps for the working-class city south of downtown Los Angeles that for years has been plagued with accusations of graft and corruption. Last year, Lynwood's former longtime mayor received a 16-year federal prison sentence after being convicted of embezzling from city contracts.
Some of those charged Thursday had vowed to clean up City Hall. But the L.A. County district attorney's office now alleges that they used their positions to enrich themselves.
The indictments depict a city where politicians freely sought ways to boost their compensation, with some council members allegedly padding their official $9,600 salaries to receive as much as $100,000 for part-time service. Prosecutors said Mayor Louis Byrd and Councilman Fernando Pedroza used city credit cards and other city funds for personal expenses, including trips abroad and airline tickets for spouses, and in Pedroza's case, a session with an exotic dancer in Mexico, prosecutors said.
Both local and federal authorities have targeted corruption in the swath of small industrial cities that dot southeast Los Angeles County. Trials are pending for current and former Vernon officials charged last year, while prosecutors in recent years have scored courtroom victories against politicians accused of misconduct in Compton, Huntington Park, South Gate and Bell Gardens.
In an interview Thursday, Byrd, 75, denied any wrongdoing but acknowledged that he and other officials had tried to find ways to increase their compensation.
"We had to come up with some process to make a little more. This is a full-time job. They call it a part-time job, but that's bull----," he said. "For all the hassles we take, we can never be compensated enough."
The district attorney's investigation began more than three years ago, with prosecutors serving search warrants at Lynwood City Hall and several homes after The Times published an article highlighting the lavish perks enjoyed by politicians in one of the county's poorest cities.
Lynwood, which has a population of about 70,000, has been trying in recent years to eliminate its reputation for public corruption. The City Council canceled the city credit cards, and even lowered the cap on travel expenses, though it still dwarfs those of other cities Lynwood's size: $25,000 for the mayor and $16,000 for council members.
"Our community loses faith in elected officials because things like this happen," said Jose Luis Solache, Lynwood's school board president. "And it's not like this happens one time. It continually happens."
The case that led to Thursday's indictments began in 2003, when Faustino Gonzales, a former Lynwood city manager, met with David Demerjian, head of the district attorney's Public Integrity Division. Gonzales told Demerjian about a trip he took the year before with Pedroza, Byrd and former Councilman Arturo Reyes to sister city Guadalajara, Mexico.
According to the criminal complaint, Pedroza and Gonzales went to a "gentlemen's club," where they drank liquor and ate.
"Pedroza hired a private room, where a dancer associated with the club entertained him," the complaint read. "At the end of the evening Pedroza and Gonzales received a bill from the club for about $1,500, which was paid by a city credit card and never reimbursed."
Through his attorney, Pedroza denied that the events took place.
Reyes later told prosecutors that fellow council members were dramatically raising their salaries by attending numerous meetings of two city agencies, the Lynwood Public Finance Authority and Lynwood Information Inc. The meetings drew heavy criticism from residents, because they were held even if there were no issues to discuss.
"We think it was just to pad their pay," Demerjian said. "Some of these meetings lasted just a couple of minutes. Each of the defendants received $75,000 to $80,000 [a year] just from those meetings."
Demerjian said that instead of being paid $450 per meeting by the agencies themselves, the officials got money straight from the city, without authorization.
Besides Pedroza and Byrd, prosecutors on Thursday charged former Councilmen Reyes, Ricardo Sanchez and Armando Rea.
Joel R. Isaacson, a criminal lawyer representing Pedroza and Rea, said the men were shocked by the charges, particularly those involving the city committee meetings.
"This is the first we've heard that this could be criminal," Isaacson said, adding that the city attorney and other city authorities approved those meetings and the compensation. "We were aware of an investigation into things such as phone bills and travel, but we thought they were really minor in nature and the amount. We didn't expect this type of investigation."
Although the median income in Lynwood is only about $34,000, council members for a long time were among the most well-compensated compared to officials in similar-size California municipalities.
A Times investigation in 2003 found that council members enjoyed New York musicals, steakhouse dinners and a samba show in Rio de Janeiro, all at taxpayer expense. From 1998 to 2003, travel and credit card expenses incurred by the five-member City Council cost taxpayers more than $600,000. Council members took $100 per diems even to attend local parades, golf tournaments and beauty pageants.
Then there was the case of former longtime Lynwood Mayor Paul Richards. He was convicted in 2005 of steering city contracts to a front corporation he secretly owned. The scheme could have netted Richards more than $6 million, although he managed to siphon off only $500,000 before authorities interrupted. His 16-year prison sentence was considered one of the longest for a public corruption case brought by the federal government.
Miguel Figueroa, a longtime Lynwood resident and lampshade maker, had to sue and wait two years to see city credit card records and council earnings information. He said he hoped the charges would change Lynwood's political culture for good.
"I think they came to believe the D.A. would never come for them," said Figueroa, 52. "Time kept passing by, and they must have thought nothing would happen. But it finally did happen. I hope in the future other politicians don't think they can get away with shameful conduct."
Mayor Byrd argues that the city got a bargain for the amount it paid him. "They could never pay you enough" for all the work council members had to do in Lynwood, he said.
But Demerjian said if that's how public servants feel, perhaps they should find another line of work.
"I hear these council members say, 'We put in a lot of time. We should be compensated,' " he said. "They're supposed to be serving the public. If they don't believe they're paid enough, then don't serve the public. Let someone else do it."
Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2007
Nunez accused by city worker
By Frank C. Girardot and Jennifer McLain, Staff Writers
ROSEMEAD - A city employee has accused Councilman John Nunez of sexual harassment, according to documents obtained Wednesday.
The Rosemead City Council met in closed session April 3 to review the harassment claim filed by employee Valerie Mazone. The complaint, dated Feb. 5, was filed with the state Department of Fair Housing and Employment.
Although the city reported the claim to an insurance adjuster on March 5, one day before the general election, it was stamped received by city officials on March 8. Nunez was not on the ballot.
"I was subjected to a sexually harassing work environment by John Nunez," Mazone, who works in the city's finance department, wrote in her claim.
City officials and Mazone's attorney, Gregory Smith of Beverly Hills, declined to elaborate.
Nunez had little comment on the allegation.
"I'm told not to say anything," Nunez said Wednesday. "Just remember, anyone can make a demand or a claim."
The city hired an outside attorney to investigate the claim. Elected to the City Council in 2005, Nunez makes up one-third of a new majority that came into power with the election of Polly Low in March.
Nunez's prior electoral experience was as a member of the Garvey School District board. In the mid-1990s, he was also a member of the Alhambra School District board.
Low's election forced longtime council member Jay Imperial from office. It set into motion a series of recent personnel changes that culminated in the resignation of City Attorney Peter Wallin two weeks ago.
The council immediately replaced Wallin with Bonifacio Garcia, whose firm also represents the Garvey School District. Nunez requested Garcia's appointment on April 3, just prior to the council going into a closed session to consider Mazone's claim.
A resident of Monrovia, Mazone is active in a local Girl Scout troop and volunteers at Arcadia Christian School. Her attorney, Smith, said she plans to file a lawsuit against the city.
She has taken an administrative leave since filing the claim, officials said.
The city has a published sexual harassment policy and grievance policy, said Oliver Chi, deputy city manager. The policy applies to employees and elected officials, Chi said.
Depending on the severity of the complaint, city officials can take a variety of actions, including hiring a private investigator.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, April 12, 2007
Politics Meets Street; Why are politicians and civic leaders bellying up to the eyebrow-raising 740 Club?
BELL GARDENS COUNCILMAN MARIO BELTRAN was recently convicted of lying to the police after a wild night last June that involved allegations of sexual assault, racial insults and public drunkenness that spilled out of the 740 Club on Broadway and onto Skid Row.
But as intriguing as that spectacle was - a councilman being seen with prostitutes and allegedly hurling the N word in a Skid Row dive - another aspect of this rising politico is his close association with 740 Club impresario Ralph Verdugo, who came to Beltran's aid after Beltran woke up drunk on the floor of the Huntington Hotel with his wallet and city badge missing.
Beltran, who had been imbibing at the 740 Club earlier that night, told Bell Gardens police he was robbed on the street at knife point by African-American men. On March 23, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury found him guilty of filing a false police report about what happened that night.
Testimony at Beltran's trial established that Verdugo and La Puente Councilman John Solis accompanied Beltran to the Huntington Hotel on his wild night to retrieve Beltran's belongings, and Beltran later went home with Verdugo to sleep off the humiliating ordeal. Police documents and testimony of a security guard at the hotel further established that Verdugo and Solis gave hotel residents the impression they were the police and could bring down the heat if they did not recover Beltran's possessions.
How does the 740 Club figure in? It is operated by Verdugo, who has a checkered past as a night-club owner and a history of brushes with the law. Solis acts as the club's caretaker when Verdugo isn't around. Beltran used to work for Verdugo at a previous, failed nightclub venture, according to public documents on file in Whittier. Beltran and Solis are not the only local officials who appear to be more than casual patrons of the 740 Club, a multistory mega-club that boasts go-go dancers, Vegas-style laser light shows, fog machines, private balcony booths and "ultra VIP sky boxes" - but which also has been plagued by disturbing and violent incidents in recent months.
According to LAPD Captain Andrew Smith, 740 Club caters to gang members and has been a source of violence and public drunkenness, even allowing a 2005 fund-raiser to pay for the funeral of a slain member of the Mongols biker gang. Smith said, "I personally have met with the owners at least four times in the last year and a half and it continues to be a nuisance."
Among the current and former local officials associated with the club is Steven Carmona, a former Los Angeles public-works and central-area planning commissioner, and now the director of the National Electrical Contractors Association/International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11. Carmona is listed as the 740 Club's representative on Department of Building and Safety inspection documents, obtained by the L.A. Weekly,and says, "I'm friends with Ralph. It's a great venue but a tough business."
In addition, the 740 Club has emerged as a venue for political gatherings sponsored by Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar, whose 14th council district includes the rundown stretch of Broadway where limousines line up in the urine-drenched alley that gives way to the velvet rope, red-carpet entrance and bastion of gangsta-style nightlife.
"Baaallinnn!" is Verdugo's motto, plastered on his MySpace page.
YET IT'S NOT ALL FUN AND GAMES at the 740 Club. Alarming incidents confirmed by local officials suggest that it is a dicey place to dance the night away. According to the LAPD, one woman was found lying unconscious there earlier this month with her pants and underpants pulled down. Authorities found evidence she had had sex, and police are investigating the incident as a possible sexual assault. Last August, a man identified as Roman Alvarado was stabbed in the 740 Club parking lot, allegedly by a member of the White Fence gang, after a fight broke out inside the club, and died from his stab wounds two weeks later.
Police also are investigating an incident in which an off-duty Long Beach cop's personal car was stolen from the 740 Club parking lot, along with his badge. The car was later recovered, but the badge is still missing. Verdugo could not be reached for comment about the troubles at his club.
All of this raises questions such as, why are government officials involved with such a joint? And what goes on at the hot and heavy 740 Club that has attracted aspiring politicos like Beltran and Solis, or former commissioners turned labor honchos like Carmona?
Then there is Huizar, identified as a "True Blue" sponsor on an invitation by the Metropolitan Democratic Club last July to its one-year anniversary party at the 740 Club, hosted by Verdugo and Carmona. Beltran and lawyer-lobbyist Francisco Leal, the city attorney in Maywood and Huntington Park, are listed as "Blue" sponsors.
Huizar also hosted a private fund-raiser there, and later took his wife to the club. However, he said he recently learned that the City Attorney's Office is considering a nuisance-abatement action, telling the Weekly, "It doesn't fit my vision for that part of Broadway."
With Verdugo at its center, it is a strange confluence of politics and nightlife, this trendy club featuring major rap and R&B acts such as R. Kelly, Missy Elliott, Usher and Snoop Dogg, which at times hosts private political events such as the after-party last fall for the National Latino Congreso.
In a recent interview with the Weekly, Beltran said he frequents the 740 Club "about once every other month," and that his wild night last June was "an isolated incident." Yet it was enough to prompt Verdugo and Solis to accompany him back to the hotel, where his two friends offered money to residents in exchange for the return of Beltran's possessions.
Solis and Verdugo actually searched the rooms of two hotel residents, according to the police report and testimony at Beltran's trial. Solis declined to comment on the incident. Nevertheless, such was Solis' - and Verdugo's - involvement in the tawdry affair that they both hired lawyers and declined to testify at Beltran's trial, despite the district attorney's offer of immunity from possible prosecution for impersonating police while at the hotel.
Meanwhile, the Weekly has learned that club owner Verdugo has had previous scrapes with the law. In 1992, according to local law enforcers, Verdugo was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon in Huntington Park. Though he was detained, formal charges were dismissed. In 1999, according to police sources, he was arrested for public intoxication in Maywood, again avoiding a criminal conviction.
BUT A LENGTHY AND WELL-DOCUMENTED public ordeal in Whittier placed Verdugo under the microscope - and offers a glimpse of how he has done business in the past.
In April 2004, Verdugo was found guilty of five misdemeanor violations involving illegal male stripteasing at Ibiza Steak and Lounge, a raucous nightclub he owned in Whittier that was a magnet for crime and violence, according to Whittier law-enforcement records obtained by the Weekly.
Before he was convicted, Whittier officials caught Verdugo holding unlicensed boxing matches. Whittier officials compiled a raft of zoning violations, and from 2000 to 2004, Whittier police records show, Ibiza was the scene of 325 calls for police service related to violence, drunkenness, and disturbances such as fights, stabbings and a shooting of a patron outside the club.
Less than a month after Verdugo was convicted for offering illegal nude-male entertainment, L.A. County Fire Department officials discovered a private party in the "VIP" room of the Ibiza featuring female exotic dancers, in violation of Ibiza's business permit. Eventually, the city revoked Verdugo's right to sell alcohol - and he went out of business.
One of his key character witnesses at the city revocation hearings was Mario Beltran, then a Bell Gardens planning commissioner, who testified that he once took a year off from politics to "work with [Verdugo] in his business as a manager."
Pressured out of Whittier, Verdugo opened the 740 Club in downtown Los Angeles in 2005, and is now president of the Entertainment Group Inc., which holds the liquor license. According to Carmona, the Fire Department "wants separate corridors from the mezzanine and the main floor, in case of emergency," and the club has yet to receive final permit approval. Rather, it operates under a renewable temporary certificate of occupancy.
Even so, the club attracts political events. And last August, after the club hosted its grand opening, Verdugo, the Entertainment Group and a club employee named Alfredo Galvez each contributed $500 to Los Angeles City Councilman Huizar - on the same day.
By Jeffrey Anderson LA Weekly, April 12, 2007
Cronyism continues
Similar to Pico Rivera, Montebello is now going through a shake-up at the top of its municipal government.
We're disappointed that the 3-2 majorities of the city councils of both cities appear to have chosen paths that hint of shortcutting their processes for rebuilding their top administrative leadership rather than conducting professional searches for the most qualified applicants.
Pico Rivera and Montebello are cities where recent history should signal to the elected council members that it is time for them to show their willingness to hire outside agencies to search for top candidates for their highest offices, so they can choose the best people at a wage the cities can afford.
Most importantly, this would demonstrate to their constituents and to their political rivals that they are willing to distance themselves from the temptation to select cronies.
Actually, we thought when council members Norma Lopez-Reid, Bob Bagwell and Jeff Siccima became the "reform" Montebello council majority in 2005, we would see a decline of what we perceived as cronyism.
But it has been surprising to watch, after the recent firing of City Attorney Marco Martinez, the hiring of Arnoldo Beltran to succeed
him. A relative of Beltran's worked on Siccima's election campaign. Could that be significant? We're not sure. That's the problem with cronyism, we think it means something, but we're not exactly sure what.
But you know what they say about ducks.
Siccima, Lopez-Reid and Bagwell also voted to end City Administrator Richard Torres' 18-year career with the city and appoint former Huntington Park police Chief Randy E. Narramore as interim administrator as they placed advertisements for applicants for a permanent city administrator in various publications.
We weren't particularly impressed that it appeared that one of the reasons Narramore was selected as the acting city administrator was he served briefly as interim district manager of the Los Angeles County Vector Control District, where Lopez-Reid met him and thought "he did a great job."
When there is a severe split on a governing board, the majority can adhere meticulously and scrupulously to detail to avoid criticism from the minority members or just because it is the better way to function.
To do otherwise, it seems, is to get sloppy because they have the power.
This transition between city administrators is the juncture where we hoped the Montebello council would take the high road and opt for squeaky cleanness.
It seemed the council majority would want to do more than place advertisements in strategic publications. It seemed they might want to go out and hire a good headhunter company to conduct a search and bring back a half-dozen of the best candidates for the council to interview and, perhaps, choose the best person for the job from that list.
Right now there still seems to be time for the Montebello council majority to do something really refreshingly different than the things they complained about when they were in the minority.
But, we haven't seen any indication yet that they intend to become heroic at this stage.
Politics-as-usual can get fairly exciting, but Montebello and Pico Rivera would both be well-served by some unexciting efficiency.
Pasadena Star News, April 6, 2007
City's New Manager Has Trail Of Disputes;
Redlands: He's Faced Lawsuits And Complaints, But Blames Them On His Fight Against Wrongdoing
Naomi Kresge, The Press-Enterprise
With an average tenure in his previous city manager posts of two years, Redlands' new top city executive has described himself as a rehabilitator of troubled cities.
But a review of public records and court cases in cities Nabar Enrique Martinez has managed shows he also received a series of large settlement payouts and left behind romances with subordinates and harassment complaints.
Martinez, who will start work in Redlands on Monday, received almost $400,000 in settlements and severances from four of his past six employers. He recently filed a claim against his most recent previous employer, Lynwood.
He dated an employee while working in Lynwood and Bell Gardens.
He married his Lynwood deputy city manager while she still worked for him.
Employees in Pasadena and Bell Gardens took legal action against Martinez, claiming he harassed them, and he was forced out of a city manager position in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., after employee complaints.
Martinez, 60, said he was targeted by people who were upset because he had spoken out against unethical dealings.
"I stand up many, many, many times for the residents of the communities, and sometimes it's very lonely, and you have to do it yourself," he said.
In Redlands, Martinez will be paid $218,000 per year, and receive a $600 per month housing allowance and $800 per month vehicle, phone and computer allowance.
He was hired to address a budget crisis declared earlier this year. The city expects to be without reserves by mid-2008, in part because of labor costs. The crunch could result in a lack of money for basic city services, including an estimated $150 million in road repairs.
Council members said in a statement last week they chose Martinez because of his experience, professionalism, integrity and "uncompromising stance on matters of ethics and good government." The council chose him unanimously on March 20 from 44 applicants.
Mayor Jon Harrison said the council knew when it hired Martinez about his February 2006 marriage to his Lynwood deputy, Marianna Marysheva, but did not know that the couple had waited several months to disclose the relationship.
"We felt it was something we could accept about him," Harrison said. "It's not like any marriages were broken up."
Harrison declined to comment on the Bell Gardens relationship or harassment allegations.
"I think he's going to be a tough leader. He's going to expect performance out of people," Harrison said.
WORK HISTORY
Martinez began his city management career in Texas in 1981, first as a budget analyst and manager of administration in Dallas, then as assistant city manager in Lubbock. He moved to California in 1989 to become a deputy city manager in San Jose.
He was not known for working well with city departments in San Jose, according to an April 1993 editorial by the San Jose Mercury News, but was well liked in the community.
Martinez's first severance payment, $40,000, came after residents protested when San Jose City Manager Les White laid him off because of budget cuts in 1993. According to the Mercury News, residents were angry that White had let go the only Hispanic among his five deputies.
Martinez went to work in September 1994 as city manager in Colton. He stayed two years, not an unusually short period in a city that cycled through eight managers between 1989 and 1997. He resigned in July 1996 with a $105,000 severance package.
Current Colton City Manager Daryl Parrish, who worked under Martinez as an assistant, said he saved the city money by privatizing its solid-waste system. Two Colton councilmen later admitted accepting cash payments in connection with the trash contract, but Martinez was not implicated in the bribery case.
Martinez then went to work in Bell Gardens, a south Los Angeles County city with a reputation for corruption. He was put on administrative leave there in May 1999 after clashing with then-Councilwoman Gloria Chacon, according to court records. His employment there ended in December 1999; Martinez said his contract was allowed to expire.
A stint as city manager in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., lasted less than a year, from December 1999 to October 2000. The City Council requested Martinez's resignation under pressure from city employees who complained of intimidation and name-calling, council minutes show. The city paid Martinez a $73,000 severance.
Martinez spent four years as an assistant city manager in Pasadena before taking his next top management job in Lynwood in April 2005. There, he said he secured $2 million in new revenue by implementing the city's first development fees.
But Lynwood Mayor Louis Byrd said Martinez added $3 million to the city's payroll, a figure Martinez disputes.
The Lynwood council placed Martinez on administrative leave in January. Councilman Fernando Pedroza said the council was displeased with his marriage to Marysheva and with his handling of major development projects.
Martinez has filed a claim in Lynwood, the precursor to a lawsuit. The council discussed the claim on Tuesday but has taken no action.
Severance clauses are common in city managers' contracts but generally only go into effect when termination is involuntary, said Michele Frisby, director of public information for the International City/County Management Association.
"You don't get a severance package if you just decide to change jobs," Frisby said.
LAWSUITS FILED
In 2001, Martinez sued Bell Gardens and Chacon, claiming breach of contract, breach of implied covenant and that the city had retaliated against him for testifying against the police chief in a lawsuit filed by Bell Gardens police officers. The city paid Martinez $175,000 in a settlement the following year, a letter from Martinez's attorney shows.
The city also settled a lawsuit that its community services director filed in 1999 after Martinez fired her. The director, Rosemarie Vasquez, claimed Martinez and then-Mayor David Torres opened an investigation that led to her firing after she complained of harassment and discrimination. Vasquez could not be reached for comment.
Court records show the city reinstated Vasquez later that year, paying her back pay and an additional $20,000.
Chacon was arrested on conflict of interest charges after she took over as city manager. The California Supreme Court ruled in February that she could not avoid prosecution by saying she had relied on the city attorney's advice when she voted for an ordinance that allowed her to move from the council dais to the manager's job.
Records in the Bell Gardens lawsuit show one point of contention with Chacon was Martinez's romantic relationship with Gloria Lujan, an employee in the city's personnel department.
Court records show Martinez began seeing Lujan in January 1998, two months before separating from his second wife. Lujan could not be reached for comment.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Martinez said this week of the relationship.
EMPLOYEE COMPLAINTS
A secretary filed a claim against Martinez and his employer, Pasadena, in 2003 claiming Martinez harassed her, records show.
Carolyn Gray filed the claim in October 2003 but did not file a lawsuit after the claim was rejected the following month, claims coordinator Bob Hays said. Gray was moved to a different department, city spokeswoman Ann Erdman said.
Gray could not be reached for comment, and her attorney was out of the country this week.
A report by EXTTI Inc., a Bell Canyon law firm that investigates employment issues, concluded there was no harassment.
But the investigator found Martinez's demanding management style could have contributed to the problem.
"He seems uncomfortable with many of the changes in the workplace - particularly those wrought by technology," the report states. "For example, Martinez still utilizes his secretary to send emails and to keep (even to turn the page on) his calendar."
An Oct. 2, 2000, letter from Palm Beach Gardens Police Chief Peter Bergel also stated that Martinez had problems working with people. Bergel writes that he was initially impressed with Martinez but became disillusioned. Bergel writes that he often saw Martinez berate and belittle staffers.
"Mother Teresa could have been there, and those cities with those histories would have had the same results," Martinez said.
RUFFLING FEATHERS
Grant Taylor, director of development services in Lynwood, defended Martinez as a man who played strictly by the rules.
"If there was ever an issue where a request came to do something that wasn't by the letter of the law, he would always back me up in my decision," Taylor said.
Martinez said Redlands residents need to move ahead to planning for the city's financial future.
Councilman Gilberto Gil said the council asked tough questions about Martinez's past during the interview process. Both Gil and Councilman Mick Gallagher noted that his contract in Redlands specifies he will not get a severance if he leaves before a year.
If the council terminates his employment after a year, he could get a severance package of one year's pay and medical benefits.
"When you're an agent of change and have a direct approach, sometimes you ruffle some feathers," Gil said.
* * *
SETTLEMENTS AND SEVERANCE
Incoming Redlands City Manager Nabar Enrique Martinez has collected almost $400,000 in settlements and severance packages from city management jobs he has held over the past 14 years.
LYNWOOD (2005-07): Filed a claim, the precursor to a lawsuit. No further action has been taken.
BELL GARDENS (1996-99): $175,000 civil lawsuit settlement.
COLTON (1994-96): $105,000 severance,
SAN JOSE* (1989-93): $40,000 severance.
* Martinez was an assistant city manager.
SOURCE: COURT RECORDS, SETTLEMENT DOCUMENTS
The Press Enterprise, April 6, 2007
Council selects Garcia as attorney
By Jennifer McLain Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - The City Council voted Tuesday night to hire a new attorney after longtime legal counsel Peter Wallin resigned.
Just as some community activists suspected, the new council majority of Mayor John Tran, Councilman John Nunez and recently elected Councilwoman Polly Low gave the nod to Bonifacio "Bonny" Garcia of Garcia, Calderon & Ruiz to serve as lead attorney.
The council did not consider any other other lawyers.
"I think Bonifacio is a well-respected attorney," Nunez said.
Allies Gary Taylor and Margaret Clark voted against the approval of the firm, which they said had a potential conflict of interest since it also represents a school district suing Rosemead.
Instead, Taylor and Clark requested more time to examine the proposal and also open the position to other bidders. Their requests were voted down by Low, Nunez and Tran.
"I think we are jumping the gun," Taylor said.
The City Council accepted the departure of Wallin, who said in his resignation letter he was sorry to end his firm's 30 years of service to the city. Rosemead will retain the services of Lisa Kranitz of the firm to handle five pending lawsuits.
Residents and city officials said they were not surprised at Wallin's decision to resign after disagreements between Wallin and Tran and Nunez.
But some questioned why the city was in such a "rush" to hire a new attorney instead of taking more time to review potential candidates.
"This is absolutely backwards," Clark said of the quick decision. Wallin submitted his resignation letter last week.
Clark said she was concerned about the potential conflict.
"I have no problem with you personally," she told Garcia. "But you do have a clear conflict of interest."
Garcia's firm represents the Garvey School District, which has sued Rosemead over the opening of the Wal-Mart Supercenter. The district claims the center has created more traffic for the students at Rice Elementary School, which is across from the store.
Legally, however, Garcia said that while his firm may represent the Garvey School District, he does not.
"There is no conflict," he said.
Tran, who has now served as mayor for eight days, emphasized that Garcia, unlike the previous attorney, would not charge the city for benefits. This change would save the city about $25,000 a year, he said.
Some residents, such as Alejandro Gandara, welcomed the change.
"I am happy to hear that we will no longer have their firm," Gandara said.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, April 4, 2007
County's role in COG debated
By Fred Ortega, Staff Writer
San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments officials are proceeding with plans to allow county supervisors to become voting members of the group, despite misgivings from some cities that such a move could dilute the council's power.
The COG board voted in February to allow supervisors Gloria Molina, Michael Antonovich and Don Knabe to appoint people to represent them on the 31-city organization. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the deal March 20, and it must now be ratified by a majority of COG's member cities to take effect.
Officials for COG and Antonovich's office said the agreement gives a voice to the Valley's 380,000 unincorporated county residents on issues being debated by COG, from transportation to housing and water quality. But some COG members argued against the agreement's provision allowing the supervisors to appoint nonelected officials in their stead to the COG Governing Board.
Such an arrangement would weaken COG by "setting a precedent and allowing other cities to pull out and appoint their own nonelected officials," said Glendora Councilman Mark Kelly, one of only two representatives to vote against the deal in February. South Pasadena also voted no.
Kelly, who is petitioning council members across the Valley to oppose the deal, said it would result in disproportionate representation in favor of the county.
"Other cities, even large ones like Pasadena, only get one member," Kelly said. "The county will get three votes."
Councilman Philip Putnam, South Pasadena's COG representative, echoed Kelly's concerns about nonelected officials joining the group.
But COG Executive Director Nicholas Conway said that the group's bylaws would not allow other cities to appoint non-elected individuals.
"This is to accommodate the supervisors' unique situation in representing unincorporated communities," said Conway, adding the agreement will allow supervisors to appoint town council members, the closest thing some unincorporated communities have to a municipal government.
COG Vice President Dave Spence said the county's three votes would not give the supervisors undue influence.
"The real goal is to get the unincorporated communities represented," said Spence, a La Ca ada Flintridge councilman. "With 31 cities, there is no way they can take any proposal and have control over it. Having \ at the table is more important than worrying about their having an undue influence, or changing the way COG is run. It is a nonissue."
He added that COG was instrumental in organizing local and state officials to lobby for funding for the San Bernardino (10) and San Gabriel River (605) interchange and carpool lane projects. Having the supervisors as official members will only make future lobbying efforts more successful, Spence said.
"I think Caltrans was surprised at the concentration of politicos that were there to push for a change on the 10/605 interchange," he said. "The supervisors are all members of the \ board, and all transportation funds are funneled through the MTA board, so we can now count on those three votes."
Having representatives on the COG board and its subcommittees will make the supervisors more "intimately aware" of the issues that are important to board members, said Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell. This will make the group a more effective lobbying force, he said.
"Valley cities are constantly competing with the city of L.A. and constantly getting the short end of the stick," Bell said, noting that the city of Los Angeles got about 60 percent of Proposition 1B freeway funding while the Valley got zero dollars. "Fighting against a behemoth like that requires cooperation, marshalling every resource possible."
Pasadena Star News, April 1, 2007
City to weigh hiring of attorney
By Frank C. Girardot, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - The City Council will hold a special meeting Tuesday to consider hiring a new city attorney who has drawn fire for his billing practices and connection to a school district that is suing the city.
Last week, attorney Peter Wallin submitted his resignation to the city after three decades representing Rosemead in court. The resignation followed a contentious election that saw longtime councilman Jay Imperial lose a re-election bid to newcomer Polly Low.
Councilman John Nunez has proposed replacing Wallin with Bonifacio "Bonny" Garcia, of Garcia, Calderon & Ruiz.
Garcia's firm currently represents the Garvey School District, which has sued Rosemead over the opening of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The district claims because the big box retailer is across the street from Rice Elementary School, extra traffic creates a health hazard for students.
"I don't represent Garvey in that matter," Garcia said.
Some council members and residents raised several questions about Garcia's proposal and past billing practices.
"We're lawyers," Garcia said. "We can interpret the law, and I don't represent the Garvey School District in any matter adverse to the city of Rosemead."
The council will vote Tuesday on the choice, but not everyone in the city is happy with the suddenness of the decision.
"They should be hiring an interim and nothing else," community activist Jim Flournoy said Friday.
Flournoy, who has two suits pending against the city, said the council should "do a full vetting, as they would with any other city service."
Garcia had his billings called into question last year while he was working at his former law firm Burke, Williams and Sorenson. The San Diego Union-Tribune learned he had billed the Sweetwater School District in San Diego County for as much as 15.3 hours in a day, and $131,708 between July 1, 2005 and the end of May 2006.
The Union-Tribune investigation described Garcia's practice of "portal-to-portal" billing, or charging the Sweetwater district an hourly rate for his time from the moment he left his Los Angeles office until arriving in Chula Vista. He also charged for the drive back to Los Angeles and mileage for the round trip.
"I would hardly call that an investigation," Garcia said. "The shots we're taking in San Diego are coming from our effective representation there."
Rosemead would join the cities of Arvin and Wasco in the Central Valley and Redwood City in the San Francisco Bay area as communities represented by Garcia's firm. The firm was formed in August last year when Garcia, a Harvard educated attorney, and his partners broke away from Burke, Sorenson and Williams.
A proposal submitted by Garcia to Rosemead doesn't indicate whether or not he would impose "portal-to-portal" charges.
In the proposed contract, Garcia asks for a flat rate of $225 per hour for the general services of his firm. For what Garcia terms "speciality services," he has proposed a rate as high as $275 per hour. There is no cap to the amount of hours his firm could bill the city in the course of a month.
"This is our standard retainer agreement," Garcia said. "Our client will see what value there is. Of course I believe our law firm is the best thing since sliced bread."
Among the items identified as speciality services are litigation "relating to public or school financing, business and real estate, eminent domain, inverse condemnation, construction defect, or other construction related litigation."
Besides the Garvey School District case, Rosemead is facing litigation from four other fronts, two of those remaining cases would likely fall into the realm of special services as they relate to the construction of Wal-Mart.
One of the cases, filed by Flournoy, alleges that Wal-Mart was built in such a way that flouted state law regarding seismic safety. The other, filed by Save Our Community, a local activist group, suggests Wal-Mart has a negative environmental impact on the community.
The last case involves a dispute between Rosemead and Baldwin Park over an motorcycle dealership that moved from the former city to the latter in 2005.
Wallin, whose firm is handling those cases, has charged Rosemead a flat retainer of $5,500 per month for general services.
Wallin said he typically performed between 30 and 40 hours of general service each month. Those hours included two council meetings, two planning commission meetings, four staff meetings each month as well as general telephone advice and review of proposed resolutions and ordinances, he said.
"All of the routine stuff," Wallin said. "If I have to be at a meeting, I don't bill. My duties include attending the council meetings."
If the monthly retainer was broken down to a per-hour rate, Wallin was charging between $137 and $185 per hour.
Additionally, Wallin said he billed the city $195 an hour for speciality services, including litigation, administrative proceedings, personnel matters, claims and pending litigation.
In those instances, Wallin, whose office is in Santa Monica, employed a similar practice of billing for his time to and from appearances, he said.
Wallin and Councilwoman Margaret Clark questioned whether or not Garcia would have a conflict-of-interest.
"It's very strange to hire a law firm that has been involved in a lawsuit against the city," Clark said in a statement released Friday. "It is very disturbing to see that in their resume they didn't disclose that they are attorneys for the Garvey School District, which in my opinion is a clear conflict of interest."
Wallin said Garcia could avoid the accusation by obtaining waivers from both Rosemead and the Garvey School District.
"He might want to call the bar hotline and get their impression," Wallin said.
The State Bar of California offices were closed Friday in observance of Cesar Chavez's birthday.
Garcia said his firm could provide high-powered services to the city of Rosemead.
"We really do believe in truth in advertising," he said. "I always tell my clients that the bullet comes through the city attorney's office first, the city manager's office second and city council last. I also tell my clients that I don't want to take any head shots."
The suddenness of change followed the departure of Imperial, who survived a recall election last year only to lose his re-election bid earlier this month.
Imperial and his allies on the council, Gary Taylor and Clark, held a majority of votes and voted in favor of bringing a Wal-Mart Supercenter to the town of 55,000 residents in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley.
Coinciding with opening of Wal-Mart, Rosemead has been undergoing a decadelong demographic upheaval that has seen an influx of Asians to the once predominantly Hispanic community.
Because of Low's opposition to Wal-Mart, her ascension potentially sets up a new majority on the council if she aligns with Mayor John Tran and Nunez, both outspoken opponents of Wal-Mart.
Garcia had his billings called into question last year while he was working at his former law firm Burke, Williams and Sorenson. The San Diego Union-Tribune learned he had billed the Sweetwater School District in San Diego County for as much as 15.3 hours in a day, and $131,708 between July 1, 2005 and the end of May 2006.
Pasadena Star News and San Gabriel Valley Tribune, March 31, 2007
Mario Beltran's Wild Night; Rising political star, on trial for falsely accusing others, can't recall using the "N" word or attacking a woman
By Jeffrey Anderson and David Zahniser
Bell Gardens City Councilman Mario Beltran walked into L.A. County Superior Court in Downey last week looking as self-assured as a politico could be while on trial for filing a false police report after being seen with prostitutes.
Beltran passed out drunk in a Skid Row hotel last June, lost possession of his wallet and city badge, and told Bell Gardens and Los Angeles police he was robbed on the street by several African-American men, one of them wielding a knife.
The boozy circumstances of his wild night at the seedy Huntington Hotel might be enough to derail the careers of lesser politicians. But Beltran has friends in high places, such as state Senator Ron Calderon, for whom he works as a field deputy, and state Senator Gil Cedillo, who mentored him early in his career. Several witnesses including Cedillo were listed as character references for Beltran, so last Wednesday, as his trial began, he was as cool as a cucumber.
That was until 6-foot-tall, rail-thin Sherrilynn Ridgeway, an African-American woman with weathered skin and a criminal record of drug dealing and prostitution, took the stand and described Beltran, a 29-year-old, 5-foot-5-inch immigrant from El Salvador, staggering around the Huntington in the wee hours of June 28 hurling racial slurs and menacing threats and, in her words, "grabbing a handful of my ass."
At that point, Beltran's expression suggested he knew he was in for a long ordeal.
The jury had been warned things could get ugly. They were going to hear allegations that Beltran degraded Ridgeway with words like "nigger" and "bitch," Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Maureen O'Brien said in her opening statement, words that O'Brien said she did not feel comfortable uttering. They also were going to hear from witnesses with questionable occupations and backgrounds. "There are no angels as witnesses," O'Brien said.
Beltran's lawyer, Philip Cohen, was not nearly as delicate. He spat out the N-word in rapid-fire bursts while shredding the testimony of one prostitute. And he accused prosecutors of misconduct, saying they offered an implicit deal to one witness, a hotel desk clerk who placed Beltran inside the hotel but also faces an unrelated gun charge in a Pasadena courtroom.
Cohen confirmed that his client was "drunk out of his mind" last June after visiting the nearby 740 Club, whose owner is a friend of Beltran's. But he urged the jury: "You will not be asked to decide if [Beltran] is an ass, a racist, a sexual assaulter or a drunkard. This case is about whether he knowingly and falsely [accused] someone of a crime."
Cohen's statement begged for some insight, however, into what a young elected official is doing in a place like the Huntington, allegedly in the company of prostitutes. If he really did use such despicable language or commit a sexual assault, what does that say about the quality of representation in Bell Gardens? And is it true that people say things when they are drunk that they are really thinking when they are sober? Beltran's lawyer insists Beltran did not make racist statements.
The trial about Beltran's foray into the night gave jurors a glimpse not just of the sordid life inside the Huntington Hotel but also of the next generation of Los Angeles County politicians. Seated in the front row each day of the trial, which is expected to end this week, was Beltran's good friend and fellow legislative aide Gil Cedillo Jr., son of the state senator whose Eastside district includes the Huntington. Facing the judge was Beltran himself, a rising political star who works for Calderon, the state senator who represents Bell Gardens. And finally, presiding over the case was newly minted Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel Lowenthal, the son of state Senator Alan Lowenthal, whose district includes the Downey courthouse where Beltran was being tried.
Beltran has made inroads with the Hollywood political set, posing with Dayna Bochco, wife of television mogul Steven Bochco, for photographs that were published on the Web site of Environmental Entrepreneurs, a support group for the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Web site praised Beltran for his work, just weeks after the Skid Row incident, in establishing California in the "carbon-conscious global marketplace."
The case against Beltran revolves around two conflicting police reports obtained by the L.A. Weekly. According to a report filed less than 24 hours after his wild night, Beltran told Bell Gardens police that he wandered from downtown's 740 Club at about 3 a.m. in search of a food vendor when he was confronted by "three to four male blacks" at the corner of Eighth and Main streets, one of whom grabbed him from behind, reached into his pockets and stole his cell phone, wallet and city badge.
There was no mention of Sherrilynn Ridgeway, the Huntington, or any of the nastiness that witnesses say occurred there. In fact, Bell Gardens Assistant City Manager Phil Gardner told police that Beltran was initially uninterested in filing a report, a hesitance that left Gardner, a reserve police officer in Montebello, "somewhat suspicious."
About a week later, LAPD detective Thayer Lake took a sexual-battery complaint from Ridgeway that described a vastly different scenario. According to the LAPD report, Beltran entered the lobby with a white 20-something prostitute named "Beth" after midnight and went to a room with her. A couple of hours later he reappeared in the lobby and approached Ridgeway, who was standing near the desk clerk.
The report states that Beltran was verbally abusive, drunkenly flashed his badge, and reached under Ridgeway's skirt and assaulted her. "This fucker just grabbed my ass," Ridgeway said, according to the report, a comment disputed by Beltran's defense attorney.
Beltran told the Weekly he was never with a prostitute that night, but that he can't recall specifics because he was so drunk. "It was an isolated incident," he said of the evening. His lawyer claims he suffered a "spot blackout" and does not recall being at the hotel or using racist language.
The LAPD report states that Ridgeway accompanied Beltran to an ATM because he was so unstable. Returning to the hotel, Beltran rented a room, and Ridgeway followed him up the stairs to the second floor, according to the report, where Beltran became aggressive, allegedly grabbing her arm and her skirt. When she yelled, the report states, bystanders came to her aid and "kicked [Beltran's] ass," causing him to drop his man purse, scattering his wallet and city badge. Angry and panicked, the report continues, Ridgeway gathered up Beltran's belongings and hid out in a friend's room.
When Beltran filed his robbery report with Bell Gardens police, and even when he returned to the scene days later to show LAPD detectives where he had allegedly been robbed, he failed to mention the Huntington, despite a tape-recorded phone call, set up after the incident by the LAPD in an effort to catch him in a lie, in which he told Ridgeway, "If I offended you in any way, that is not who I am."
While Beltran omitted the Huntington Hotel during his police interviews, security guard Antonio Hines said he clearly remembered Beltran's visit. Hines testified that he found the drunken councilman passed out in the hallway on the second floor and helped carry him downstairs. Hines followed him out to the parking lot of the 740 Club, about a block away.
There, Beltran encountered a couple of friends, 740 Club owner Ralph Verdugo and La Puente City Councilman John Solis, the report states. Verdugo and Solis brought Beltran back to the Huntington and offered money to residents for information about where Ridgeway lived, and about where to find Beltran's possessions, according to the LAPD report.
Hines told jurors that Beltran's friends pretended to be police even as they offered $500 to anyone who could produce the councilman's badge. One Beltran associate, according to Hines, delivered the message explicitly. "Unless you cooperate with me, I can have 150 cops come up here... in a matter of minutes, secure the whole apartment and take all you guys down," Hines recalled one saying.
Despite being offered immunity from potential prosecution for impersonating a police officer, Verdugo and Solis informed prosecutors they intended to invoke their Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify. Both men were dropped from the district attorney's witness list.
On the trial's fourth day, jurors were treated to a July 13 audio tape of Beltran being quizzed via telephone by Lake, the LAPD detective. On tape, Beltran again declined to mention the hooker hotel, repeating his story about being robbed on the street.
When Beltran spoke to Bell Gardens police two weeks earlier, he had been unable to describe any of the men in the knife-point robbery scenario. But in his LAPD interview, Beltran suddenly had clear descriptions of the dark-skinned men whom he portrayed as his attackers. One had a "light beard" and was three inches taller than Beltran; another was in his late 20s.
Asked why he did not initially tell the LAPD about the robbery, Beltran offered an answer that made sense no matter what a jury decides. "I was very embarrassed," said Beltran, pointing out that he shouldn't have been out so late. "In many ways," he told the LAPD detective, "I was responsible for what happened to me."
While the jury learned quite a bit about Beltran's wild side, some Bell Gardens officials have heard enough. Mayor Jennifer Rodriguez told the Weekly, "Our concern is not to cover up for Councilman Beltran. He appears to have been untruthful with us. It's become the focus of negative attention. Even if he is found innocent, he has caused damage to our community."
LA Weekly, March 21, 2007
Vote may have launched new era in Rosemead
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - Jay Imperial, 76, has served nine terms on the City Council, surviving a recall election in September that targeted him and Mayor Gary Taylor for votes backing a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
But Tuesday, the 1,503 votes he received were trumped by newcomer Polly Low, who received 1,868 votes, and Taylor, who received 1,673 votes.
Imperial said he was surprised he was not re-elected, especially in light of the recent recall results.
"I am afraid where the city is heading," he said.
During Imperial's 30 years on the council, his accomplishments included the construction of the Garvey Center and most recently the development of the Wal-Mart.
"Everything was seeming to go smooth" before Councilmen John Tran and John Nunez joined the council in 2005, he said.
Since their arrival, votes have often been 3-2, with longtimers Taylor, Imperial and Margaret Clark sticking together.
Some say his departure could signify a new era.
"It is a great opportunity for the residents," Tran said Thursday, "to really see a qualified person such as Polly Low to help transform the city."
Now that Low is on board, some have assumed that Low will side with Nunez and Tran.
"What worries me is \ now have the third vote," said Joan Hunter, past president of the Rosemead Chamber of Commerce. "I am afraid of what Tran and Nunez will tell her to do."
Some council votes that have been split were on a proposal to have a $5,000-limit credit card for council members and the approval of Wal-Mart. Tran and Nunez voted for the credit card limit and against Wal-Mart.
Clark was hesitant to say what the departure of Imperial means to the council and the city.
Some voters are welcoming the change, such as longtime resident Larry Bevington, who said he was encouraged by the new faces on the council.
"I just have a feeling that this is the age and the group that could really do this job," Bevington said.
Pasadena Star News, March 9, 2007
Welcome to Paradise
The city fathers of Vernon, Calif. run their tiny town like a family business, with unchecked power, pay and perks
by Evan Hessel
Four miles south of downtown Los Angeles sits the city of Vernon, a five-square-mile industrial enclave of meatpacking plants, warehouses and paint-mixing factories. There's not much to see, but smells are plentiful, courtesy of a rendering factory that boils the dead pets of southern California into grease and high-protein animal feed.
Only 92 people live in Vernon. There are no parks, schools, libraries, health clinics or grocery stores. The only four restaurants close by 4 p.m. By sundown the 44,000 workers who commute here have all fled the stench.
Vernon's leaders like it that way. California's tiniest city, if you want to call it a city, is one of the nation's most lasting and efficient political machines, run almost entirely for the benefit of a handful of rarely opposed, extremely well-paid politicians. Vernon should have been subsumed long ago into the surrounding city of L.A, but its independence is a strange and stark example of how a democracy can become a dynasty.
Vernon is run by two families: the Malburgs and the Malkenhorsts, neither of which agreed to be interviewed. The bespectacled Leonis C. Malburg, 77, whose grandfather founded Vernon in 1905, has been mayor for 33 years. Bruce Malkenhorst, 71, was for 32 years the city administrator as well as clerk, finance director, treasurer, redevelopment agency secretary and chief executive of the utility Vernon Light & Power. The city was reportedly paying him $600,000 a year, more than twice what L.A.'s mayor earns, until he resigned all posts unexpectedly and without public announcement in 2005. By most accounts Malkenhorst still pulls the strings. His appointed successor is his 42-year-old son, Bruce Jr.
Theirs is a benign dictatorship. Who would run against them? Outsiders hoping to move into town are denied housing permits and Vernon's 32 houses and apartments are owned by the city and leased to its employees for as little as $150 per month. In 1980 Malkenhorst Sr. evicted a former cop from his Vernon owned house after he ran against Malkenhorst's
favored candidates. Last year the state Superior Court forced Malkenhorst Jr. to move ahead with an election he had derailed on the grounds that the three challengers had moved in illegally. Once the votes were counted, the incumbents won anyway--in a landslide.
The law is getting around to Vernon. In November the Los Angeles district attorney's office handed down indictments against Malburg, his wife and son and Malkenhorst Sr. The charges are trivial, but they could put an end to Vernon's machine: Mayor Malburg is charged with voting in Vernon but living 11 miles away in the tony nabe of Hancock Park, Malkenhorst with diverting $60,000 in city funds to reimburse himself for golf trips, massages and political campaign donations. The city was also paying for his round-trip limo commutes from his $2.3 million home, 37 miles away in Huntington Beach, Calif.
The Malkenhorsts and Malburg run a nice little business. As of 2005 Vernon had $164 million in cash and liquid assets. That comes to $1.8 million per resident. (New York City has $2,000 per resident.) The city collects $36 million a year in taxes and fees and spends $40 million in salaries, benefits and services. The gap is more than filled by the cash from Vernon Power & Light, which operates a 134-megawatt gas-fired generation station for the city's industrial base. It produces a $17 million profit on revenue of $111 million. Malkenhorst also floated $49 million in tax-free bonds to redevelop property and add another stream of tax revenues. That generates $5 million a year in revenue.
But bigger plans are afoot. Working its way through the California Energy Commission is a proposal to begin building a 940-megawatt power plant in Vernon later this year. The city's peak power demand is only a fifth of that; the balance could be sold. The project has drawn fire from environmentalists and nearby communities, but if it gets built, it could generate an estimated $360 million in annual revenue, or $4 million per resident.
Vernon around the turn of the 20th century was a stretch of unincorporated grassland near Los Angeles' burgeoning downtown, until John B. Leonis arrived from the Basque region of southern France in 1896. He persuaded the railroads to run spurs to his property and, with a couple of fellow ranchers, incorporated the area as the city of Vernon.
Leonis created a playground, leasing property for a baseball stadium, a 7,000- seat boxing arena and the "world's longest bar," 100 feet long and manned by 37 bartenders. As East Coast industrialists trekked to Vernon for heavyweight bouts, Leonis pitched them on locating their West Coast factories in his hamlet. By the 1930s Owens-Illinois, Studebaker and Alcoa had opened there, buying subsidized electricity from the new utility, Vernon Light & Power. When Leonis died in 1953 he left an estate reportedly worth $8 million, including several parcels of land, to his grandson Leonis, who had grown up shooting BB guns in Vernon's stockyards. Leonis Malburg first won a council seat in 1956 and was elected mayor in 1974.
Vernon's finances were shaky then. In 1975 the council hired a brash 37-year-old finance official, Bruce V. Malkenhorst, to cut costs. In 1978 he fired the entire 90-man fire department after they went on strike. He also slashed Vernon's police department in half.
His power cemented, Malkenhorst went on to use Vernon's taxpayer-subsidized capital to attract more businesses and sloshed the profits from Light & Power around Vernon as he pleased. Among the more curious transactions was a one-time $68 million transfer in 2004 from the utility to the city's general fund. The transfer was accounted for as a repayment for debts accrued by the utility since 1934, but the liability was unmentioned in the prior year's financials.
But Malkenhorst's enterprise was suddenly thrown into peril at a city council meeting in September 2004. The council wanted to discuss an 85-page report by Eduardo Olivo, who had been Vernon's city attorney for the past five years. Olivo had documented dozens of allegedly bogus expense-account reimbursements claimed by Malkenhorst. Malburg, with Olivo absent, derided his claims as the fantasies of a disgruntled employee. Malkenhorst fired Olivo the next day and slapped him with a lawsuit for breach of contract and negligence. The district attorney's office of Los Angeles County got wind of the report, which led to the investigation that culminated in the indictments in November.
Malburg, his wife, his son and Malkenhorst have all pleaded not guilty in their cases. At a hearing in January the mayor and ex-administrator didn't so much as acknowledge each other in court. Malburg shuffled silently out of the court at the end of the hearing. Malkenhorst, by contrast, appeared upbeat and firmly gripped the hands of well-wishers on his way out.
The state's power regulators continue to review the plans for Vernon's massive new generator. At a public hearing in November Vernon's power czar said the plant would provide the area with "reliable, stable, available power.&" It will also emit 881 tons a year of particulates and carcinogens into one of southern California's most polluted regions. At the November hearing 17-year-old Ryan Perez, a student at nearby Huntington Park High School, slammed the project. "Vernon is on three sides of us," he said. "It's already a horrible environment to live in and to play in and to have to go to school in. And to add something else which will increase the pollution is just not right."
In a saner world Vernon would be just another neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles. But with no democratic process in place to check its leaders, Vernon will continue to create spoils for a few and a toxic stench for everyone else.
Forbes, February 26, 2007
The Town the Law Forgot
An L.A. 'burb is mired in gangs, cartels and south-of-the-border-style politics
By Jeffrey Anderson Los Angeles Weekly
February 21, 2007
(Part of Article) Ever-present in Cudahy and its neighboring cities are three attorneys who have, over the years, blended municipal law and lobbying to great effect. Arnoldo Beltran, Francisco Leal and David Olivas have made a small fortune representing scandal-plagued cities. Today, Olivas represents Cudahy and Leal represents Maywood, with the two cities sharing a police force that is in disarray.
Perhaps foremost among the many controversies in which these lawyers have been embroiled are allegations explored in a 1999 L.A. Times story that Beltran, a Stanford-educated lawyer, and Leal, a Harvard Law School graduate raised by immigrants in El Paso, were threatening to launch recall campaigns against elected officials in Lynwood, Commerce and Bell Gardens if they did not vote to retain the two men's legal services.
Beltran and Leal, former partners in a now-defunct law firm that also included Olivas as an associate, at the time denied the allegations. Beltran would not comment for this article. Leal did not return several calls for comment. But they would be hard-pressed to deny that their political savvy has earned them a reputation for being influential advisers to many small cities.
In 1999, the firm split, with Leal and Olivas going off to form Leal, Olivas & Jauregui, which represented the city of Cudahy in 2000 when Perez made the revolving-door move, through a series of ordinances drafted by David Olivas, from city councilman to city manager. The resulting grand-jury investigation did not lead to criminal charges but left a lasting mark on the city.
Less than a year later, in Bell Gardens, Beltran drafted a slightly different ordinance with the exact same effect: to upgrade a city councilwoman, Maria Chacon, to city manager. The move had serious consequences. Investigators from the D.A.'s office searched Beltran's offices in 2001 in connection with an investigation of Chacon, whom they later charged with criminal conflict of interest. Beltran hired celebrity defense lawyer Mark Geragos, though Beltran was not named as a target of the investigation, nor was he charged with a crime.
Chacon spent the next several years defending the charges on grounds that Beltran advised her it was okay to vote on the ordinance that allowed her to switch roles from council member to city manager. The state Supreme Court rejected that defense recently, clearing the way for Cooley's office to take her to trial.
The methods of Beltran, Leal and Olivas left a mark on their former law partner Jesse Jauregui, who broke all ties with the group in 2001. Jauregui has this -- and only this -- to say about his old colleagues: "I'm glad to no longer be a part of Tammany Hall'style politics. How far it goes, I do not know. It became a seamy situation."
The legal maneuvering that led to new leadership in Cudahy was part of a larger strategy, says former Cudahy councilwoman Araceli Gonzalez, a child of Mexican immigrants. "They were very outspoken," says Gonzalez of the lawyers who advised Cudahy and Bell Gardens. "They were telling people they were going to take over these cities and put Latinos in power."
Olivas, now in his own law practice while wearing two hats -- as Cudahy city attorney and councilman in Baldwin Park -- argues that the move to anoint Perez as Cudahy city manager was about Latino self-determination, and that change in leadership in small southeast L.A. County cities was for the better.
"People were tired of being governed by outsiders," Olivas says. "This was people from Cudahy, of Cudahy and for Cudahy."
But since that time of upheaval, certain actions by Cudahy officials have raised questions about whether they are acting in the public's best interest as Maywood struggles to get the two cities' shared police force under control.
Ex-Bell Gardens official loses state high court ruling;
The decision clears the way for the prosecution of Maria Chacon in a conflict-of-interest case
Maura Dolan, Times Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- Ruling against a former Bell Gardens City Council member, the California Supreme Court decided Thursday that public officials may be guilty of corruption even if they relied on a government attorney's opinion that their conduct was legal.
The unanimous decision clears the way for the prosecution of ex-council member Maria Chacon, who was charged with conflict of interest after allegedly pressuring other council members to appoint her city manager.
Chacon contended that she based her actions on an opinion from the city attorney, but the court said that was no defense.
"A public official is not required to know that his conduct is unlawful" to be found to have broken the law, Justice Carol A. Corrigan wrote for the court. "Therefore, reliance on advice of counsel as to the lawfulness of the conduct is irrelevant."
Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley called the decision a "big victory for us and those other prosecutors in California who are actively enforcing conflict-of-interest laws."
"This sends a very, very powerful message that this mechanism to circumvent conflict-of-interest statutes is not going to be tolerated," Cooley said.
D.A. spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said many counties around the state prosecute public corruption, and the defense the Supreme Court struck down was not uncommon.
"This has huge statewide significance," Gibbons said.
Michael D. Nasatir, an attorney for Chacon, said he was "terribly disappointed."
"Maria Chacon has always maintained that she is entirely innocent of these charges," Nasatir said. "We will not stop fighting until her innocence is established. We respect the American jury system, and her salvation is now in the hands of a jury of her peers."
Cooley said he was unaware of Chacon's current employment, and Nasatir declined to elaborate beyond his statement. If convicted of the felony charge, Chacon could receive a maximum of three years in prison.
Chacon, arrested in 2001, was considered the most powerful public official in Bell Gardens at the time. She was credited with a campaign in the early 1990s to oust the white-majority council in the heavily Latino city and helped allies win elections.
Many residents protested her appointment as city manager, saying she was unqualified because she lacked a college degree and had no experience running a city.
Prosecutors said Chacon, in an effort to get the appointment, sought the support of another council member and told him of her desired salary and terms. But the Bell Gardens municipal code prohibited anyone from being appointed within one year of service on the City Council.
That waiting period was removed by a vote of the council, which included Chacon. The other council members later gave her an $80,000 annual contract, and she moved from the council to the city manager's office.
Cooley prosecuted Chacon under a state law that prohibits public officials from having a financial interest in a contract approved by their agency.
A trial judge ruled that Chacon could present evidence that she had relied on advice from the city attorney that her conduct was legal. L.A. prosecutors said they could not proceed under those circumstances, and the judge dismissed the case.
But prosecutors appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which overruled the trial judge. The state Supreme Court upheld the appellate decision.
The defense Chacon wanted to use -- reliance on advice from a government official -- has been recognized as legitimate in other cases. But the Supreme Court said it should not be extended to public officials who claim reliance on "public attorneys charged with counseling them and advocating on their behalf."
The court observed that the city attorney in Bell Gardens was a subordinate of the City Council. An official cannot escape liability by "claiming to have been misinformed by an employee serving at her pleasure," the court said.
Otherwise, a public official could "insulate herself from prosecution by influencing an appointee to provide the advice she seeks."
The court did not determine that Chacon had violated the law, only that she could not rely on the defense of bad advice from a government lawyer. A trial date has yet to be set.
Los Angeles Times, February 9, 2007
Ex-Bell Gardens official loses state high court ruling;
The decision clears the way for the prosecution of Maria Chacon in a conflict-of-interest case
Maura Dolan, Times Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- Ruling against a former Bell Gardens City Council member, the California Supreme Court decided Thursday that public officials may be guilty of corruption even if they relied on a government attorney's opinion that their conduct was legal.
The unanimous decision clears the way for the prosecution of ex-council member Maria Chacon, who was charged with conflict of interest after allegedly pressuring other council members to appoint her city manager.
Chacon contended that she based her actions on an opinion from the city attorney, but the court said that was no defense.
"A public official is not required to know that his conduct is unlawful" to be found to have broken the law, Justice Carol A. Corrigan wrote for the court. "Therefore, reliance on advice of counsel as to the lawfulness of the conduct is irrelevant."
Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley called the decision a "big victory for us and those other prosecutors in California who are actively enforcing conflict-of-interest laws."
"This sends a very, very powerful message that this mechanism to circumvent conflict-of-interest statutes is not going to be tolerated," Cooley said.
D.A. spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said many counties around the state prosecute public corruption, and the defense the Supreme Court struck down was not uncommon.
"This has huge statewide significance," Gibbons said.
Michael D. Nasatir, an attorney for Chacon, said he was "terribly disappointed."
"Maria Chacon has always maintained that she is entirely innocent of these charges," Nasatir said. "We will not stop fighting until her innocence is established. We respect the American jury system, and her salvation is now in the hands of a jury of her peers."
Cooley said he was unaware of Chacon's current employment, and Nasatir declined to elaborate beyond his statement. If convicted of the felony charge, Chacon could receive a maximum of three years in prison.
Chacon, arrested in 2001, was considered the most powerful public official in Bell Gardens at the time. She was credited with a campaign in the early 1990s to oust the white-majority council in the heavily Latino city and helped allies win elections.
Many residents protested her appointment as city manager, saying she was unqualified because she lacked a college degree and had no experience running a city.
Prosecutors said Chacon, in an effort to get the appointment, sought the support of another council member and told him of her desired salary and terms. But the Bell Gardens municipal code prohibited anyone from being appointed within one year of service on the City Council.
That waiting period was removed by a vote of the council, which included Chacon. The other council members later gave her an $80,000 annual contract, and she moved from the council to the city manager's office.
Cooley prosecuted Chacon under a state law that prohibits public officials from having a financial interest in a contract approved by their agency.
A trial judge ruled that Chacon could present evidence that she had relied on advice from the city attorney that her conduct was legal. L.A. prosecutors said they could not proceed under those circumstances, and the judge dismissed the case.
But prosecutors appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which overruled the trial judge. The state Supreme Court upheld the appellate decision.
The defense Chacon wanted to use -- reliance on advice from a government official -- has been recognized as legitimate in other cases. But the Supreme Court said it should not be extended to public officials who claim reliance on "public attorneys charged with counseling them and advocating on their behalf."
The court observed that the city attorney in Bell Gardens was a subordinate of the City Council. An official cannot escape liability by "claiming to have been misinformed by an employee serving at her pleasure," the court said.
Otherwise, a public official could "insulate herself from prosecution by influencing an appointee to provide the advice she seeks."
The court did not determine that Chacon had violated the law, only that she could not rely on the defense of bad advice from a government lawyer. A trial date has yet to be set.
Los Angeles Times, February 9, 2007
Montebello Council selects city attorney
By Pam Wight, Staff Writer
MONTEBELLO - The City Council voted 3-2 to hire J. Arnoldo Beltran as the new city attorney at a special meeting Tuesday night.
City Administrator Richard Torres said he could not disclose details, including how much Beltran will be paid, until the council votes on his contract at its next meeting, scheduled for Tuesday.
Beltran, who works at Beltran & Medina of Los Angeles, will replace interim City Attorney John Pringle.
Councilman Jeff Siccama, who normally aligns his vote with Mayor Norma Lopez-Reid and Councilman Bob Bagwell, this time voted with council members Rosie Vasquez and Bill Molinari.
The switch surprised Siccama's supporters. During Siccama's campaign, he criticized incumbent council members for awarding contracts to close friends or family members.
Beltran's cousin, Michael Beltran, worked on Siccama's campaign, according to Jacqueline Carr of Montebello Citizens for Open Government, a local political group that supported and helped run Siccama's 2005 council campaign. Michael Beltran also works for J. Arnoldo Beltran's law firm, she added.
"The only thing I can say is I'm shocked \ voted this way," Carr said. "I campaigned for him, did phones for him, walked for him, and it looks like he hasn't kept up with his promises, has he? I don't get it."
Siccama responded by saying that "in small cities, everybody knows everybody."
"All the firms were good and very qualified, but my feeling was to go with a smaller firm like Beltran's that could provide the service we need," he said. "Sometimes you have to stand and make a decision that's not necessarily popular."
Carr also cited a 1999 Los Angeles Times article that claimed J. Arnoldo Beltran used heavy-handed tactics to acquire and maintain city contracts. In the article, Beltran denied the allegations.
Beltran did not return phone calls seeking comment Wednesday.
Bagwell played down the concerns of Carr's group. Although Beltran "comes with a lot of baggage," Bagwell said Beltran will "do what was best for the city to move forward."
"He was not my choice, but we as a city have to work together," Bagwell said. "The council has made a decision. I'm in opposition to it, but I have no problem working with people. I'm sure he's a good attorney."
Beltran has been a city attorney in Bell Gardens, Commerce and Lynwood. He is still the city attorney for Lynwood, Siccama said.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune February 8, 2007
SoPas appoints fourth city attorney since 2003
By Cortney Fielding. Staff Writer
SOUTH PASADENA - A new year brings yet another new city attorney to South Pasadena.
The City Council today is expected to award a contract for legal service to Richard Adams and the West Covina law firm he helped found in 1989, Alvarez-Glasman and Colvin.
Adams, 56, will be the fourth city attorney for South Pasadena in almost four years.
The Montebello resident will take the reins from City Attorney Richard Terzian, who assumed the job in early 2006 when his predecessor, Stephen Pfahler, left for a county judgeship in Los Angeles.
City officials hope Adams' appointment will bring stability to a position wracked with turnover.
"I would sure hope it slows it down," Councilman Mike Ten said of the revolving door. "To me it's like our fourth attorney change since coming to the council."
The council voted 3-2 to fire longtime City Attorney Joseph Pannone in 2003, arguing that advice he gave earlier in the year on a building moratorium cost the city $111,000 in fees when a judge determined it violated the state's open-meeting laws.
Pfahler and his firm Bannan, Green, Frank & Terzian were hired six months later. But Pfahler was soon tapped by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to serve as a Los Angeles Superior Court judge and left South Pasadena after about two years on the job.
Terzian, then assistant city attorney, subsequently took over last February.
Mayor Philip Putnam said Terzian's was not an interim position, but members of the council wanted to explore other options.
"He just wasn't the city attorney we had picked," he said.
Terzian's brief stint as city attorney was marked by public run-ins with Councilman David Margrave. Terzian repeatedly advised Margrave that he was violating conflict-of-interest laws by refusing to recuse himself on official discussions about South Pasadena's failed business-park area, the Ostrich Farm. Margrave's ex-wife, with whom he lives and refers to as his wife, owns property in the area.
Eleven firms applied for the city attorney position, and four were interviewed in November. Putnam said the final choice came down to experience at the municipal level.
"We like the fact that they are going to have the answers to many of our questions at their fingertips," Putnam said. "We won't have to be dealing with many new issues."
Under terms of the contract, the law firm will receive the same $7,500-per-month retainer as the previous firm. The city will also be charged an hourly rate of $165 for Alvarez-Glasman and Colvin's litigation and other services.
Adams, who previously served as Pico Rivera's city attorney, acknowledged the challenges ahead.
The city is in ongoing litigation over the proposed Long Beach (710) Freeway extension and the Gold Line light rail.
While the city often turns to specialized attorneys for those issues, Adams said he plans to exercise more oversight.
"It's not our intent to disrupt anything there," he said, "just to make sure special council is doing what the city needs."
He expects land use will be a crucial issue for South Pasadena.
"Land use seems to be a No. 1 priority - how much preservation do you keep, and what changes do you make," he said.
Adams' term will begin once his contract is formally approved, which is scheduled to happen at tonight's council meeting.
But he expects to start work immediately.
"It's a little overwhelming," he said. "But it's exciting because it's new. It gets your adrenaline going."
Pasadena Star News, January 2, 2007
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