News Stories Of Interest To Residents of Southern California
For news stories of interest from 2007, see below and here.
1. Ex-official teams up with ex-city attorney in lawsuit, December 9, 2007
2. Measure D back in spotlight; Lawyers: Proposal would allow Internet tax, December 8, 2007
3. As city's legal fees rise, confusion persists; Rosemead reviews law firms' contracts, November 26, 2007
4. City's views on new Wal-Mart improve, November 25, 2007
5. Pasadena women top area municipal pay list, November 12, 2007
6. Cities reconsider 30-day impounding of cars, November 1, 2007
7. Council OKs newsletter; Some say timing helps incumbents, October 31, 2007
8. Report: Release of pay stubs an error, October 19, 2007
9. Lawsuit alleges city is hostile, October 14, 2007
10. Council votes to report member, October 11, 2007
11. City attorney clarifies letter's intent; Carvalho says she didn't ask Claremont blog be shut down, October 10, 2007
12. Report: Workers in hostile setting; Councilman calling for expanded inquiry, October 9, 2007
13. City wants blog pulled; Officials ask Google to terminate Claremont Insider, October 4, 2007
14. Mario's Tow Truck Troubles; A state senator comes to the aid of a pal facing legal and political problems in Bell Gardens. But at what cost?, October 4, 2007
15. Lynwood voters oust mayor, three city council members, September 27, 2007
16. Justice in Lynwood; Voters move forward with election City Hall tried to block, September 27, 2007
17. Attorney fees remain high; Rosemead looking to trim spiraling costs, September 22, 2007
18. Council shoots down motion, September 21, 2007
19. U.S., Walnut reach settlement deal in voting rights lawsuit, September 21, 2007
20. Lynwood Residents Accuse Willoughby of Malpractice and Misrepresentation, September 20, 2007
21. Blog's pay stub post protected?; Expert says city employee information is public record, September 14, 2007
22. Claremont consider legal action in pay-stub leak, September 13, 2007
23. Council accused of Brown Act violation; The city attorney's office denies any wrongdoing, September 12, 2007
24. City disables access to online archive, September 12, 2007
25. Conflict of interest in school deal?, September 9, 2007
26. City looks into leak of pay stub, September 8, 2007
27. Huge legal fees dog attorney; Cities fired Garcia over bill excesses, September 4, 2007
28. Rosemead puts cap on legal fees; Move comes after city billed $100,000 in 3 months, September 4, 2007
29. Council district proposal fails; West Covina petition rejected by city, judge, August 30, 2007
30. Rosemead council puts cap on attorney fees, August 29, 2007
31. Recall election a go in Montebello, August 24, 2007
32. A political issue, August 19, 2007
33. Council decides on law firm, August 15, 2007
34. Power struggle over project; Firefighters oppose development plans, August 13, 2007
35. Attorney's bills prompt review, August 10, 2007
36. Council districts on ballot, August 8, 2007
37. Hawthorne councilman indicted in conflict case, July 27, 2007
38. Harrassment suit against Nunez fuels arguments, July 23, 2007
39. Beltran removed as city attorney, July 19, 2007
40. Judge Orders Lynwood Recall Election Forward, July 19, 2007
41. Rosemead council delays decision on law firm, July 19, 2007
42. DA won't charge Hernandez, July 3, 2007
43. Lynwood defies order to hold recall vote; The council strips the city clerk of her duties when she tries to certify petitions. And it refuses to set an election date. A judge gets the case today, July 3, 2007
44. Rosemead may seek second attorney, June 26, 2007
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45. Developers contribute to council members, June 24, 2007
46. Glendora ordered to pay attorney's fees; Resident Aguirre won Public Records Act lawsuit, June 22, 2007
47. Bell Gardens councilman accused of conflict in backing city contract; Mario Beltran allegedly helped a towing firm linked to a friend get a $5-million job, June 22, 2007
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48. Ex-city official to be arraigned; Thrasher faces perjury, interest conflict counts, June 17, 2007
49. DA again rejects filing charges in dispute over campaign signs, June 9, 2007
50. Recall efforts in Montebello persist; Signatures collected to oust 3 council members, June 6, 2007
For more news stories of interest from 2007, see here.
For news stories of interest from 2006, click here.
For news stories of interest from 2005 and before, click here.
For news stories of interest from 2001 and before click here.
Ex-official teams up with ex-city attorney in lawsuit
By Dan Abendschein, Staff Writer
MONTEBELLO - An official forced to resign by the City Council in 2006 is being represented by the former city attorney in a lawsuit against the city, a councilman and two former council members.
Ruben Lopez, the former community development director, is suing for breach of contract, defamation, invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress.
He is being represented by Arnold Alvarez-Glasman, the former Montebello city attorney who was ousted in a 3-2 vote by two of three council members he is suing on Lopez's behalf.
Lopez signed an agreement with the city when he left, stating that officials cannot "criticize, discredit, or otherwise disparage" him. He filed a legal complaint with the city in February saying council members and officials made "false and damaging statements" to the press and others.
Lopez requested $12 million as compensation for breach of the contract. The council rejected his complaint.
"The suit does not have merit," said Bob Bagwell, a former councilman named in the lawsuit.
Phone calls to Lopez and Alvarez-Glasman for comment were not returned.
Alvarez-Glasman is city attorney for several San Gabriel Valley cities, including West Covina and Pomona.
Lopez agreed to step down in July 2006 under threat of being voted out by a three-council-member majority of Bagwell, Jeff Siccama and Norma Lopez-Reid.
Siccama said Lopez was too attached to development projects that were not bringing in any tax revenue, and the city wanted to go in a new direction. He said both Glasman and Lopez were out to get the city.
"I think they want to get in their shots at the city," Siccama said.
Bagwell and Lopez-Reid lost their seats in November's election. Siccama is facing a recall election later this month.
All three were linked to the dismissal of Lopez, the head city administrator, and the fire chief. They were also accused of trying to scrap the Fire Department in order to bring in county fire services.
Alvarez-Glasman, who served on the Montebello City Council from 1985 to 1997, had his contract terminated by the city in 2005 by a three-member majority that included Bagwell and Lopez-Reid.
Bagwell said Alvarez-Glasman was too connected to developers, some of whom Lopez was initiating development deals with.
Bagwell and Lopez-Reid were joined by Councilman Bill Molinari in voting Alvarez-Glasman out.
Molinari later spoke out against the city pressuring Lopez to resign and opposed Siccama, Lopez-Reid and Bagwell when they voted to terminate the contracts of the city administrator and fire chief.
Bagwell said he never was entirely clear why Molinari voted against Alvarez-Glasman.
"I was surprised we got Molinari's vote," said Bagwell. "I think he and Alvarez-Glasman are back on the same page now."
Molinari said he did not have concerns about Alvarez-Glasman, but felt the alternate law firm "better fit the city's needs." He did not offer specific reasons.
As part of his severance package Lopez received 12 months of pay, benefits and accrued retirement benefits, according to city documents.
Patricia Macht, a spokeswoman for the state's Cal PERS public-employee retirement system, said that while she was not familiar with Lopez's agreement and could not comment on it, city employees are not generally allowed to continue to accrue retirement benefits after they leave.
"Severance packages are not meant to be used as a way to keep people on the payroll to accrue benefits," Macht said.
She said it was possible that Lopez might not be able to collect retirement benefits for the 12 months after his dismissal from the city.
The city has not been served with the lawsuit yet, officials said, so for now there are no court dates set.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, December 9, 2007
Measure D back in spotlight
Lawyers: Proposal would allow Internet tax
By Kenneth Todd Ruiz, Staff Writer
PASADENA - Approving Measure D would allow City Hall to enact an Internet-access tax at a future time without a vote of the people, according to the legal team that wrote the ballot measure.
Seeking to challenge "misleading" ballot statements filed by Measure D opponents, the law firm of Colantuono & Levin filed a motion in court Friday arguing the City Council-endorsed ballot measure would "allow," not "force," a tax on Internet access.
"Our basic point is Measure D authorizes an Internet tax, but it doesn't require it," Colantuono said in a telephone interview.
The measure is designed that way, he said, because technological strides might render telephone use unrecognizable in time.
"If you make it very clear that you're not taxing Internet access, you may limit your ability to tax what you and I consider telephone use when that migrates onto the Web," he said.
City officials insisted Friday that Pasadena will not tax Internet access without a vote.
Colantuono's office wrote Measure D and has also filed a lawsuit on behalf of City Clerk Jane Rodriguez challenging ballot statements made by blogger Wayne Lusvardi.
On Friday morning, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs ruled that the city's legal action can go forward on an expedited schedule. Arguments will be heard Dec. 17.
Defending Lusvardi will be the first case for longtime schools critic Rene Amy, who was sworn in as a lawyer Tuesday.
"This is a clear and blatant attempt by the city to chill political discourse and punish those who don't speak the same way and use the same words City Hall wants everyone to use," Amy said of the city's legal challenge.
That Measure D includes a legal framework for an Internet-access tax seems to contradict weeks of statements by city officials that the measure would only maintain the status quo on the telephone portion of the city's 60-year-old Utility User Tax.
Most recently, proponents repeated that assertion in their rebuttal argument:
"Measure D deals only with continuing the current UUT on telephone service. It does not tax Internet access - now or in the future."
Several council members, including Mayor Bill Bogaard, were surprised Friday to hear Measure D could allow an Internet-access tax, saying it fit neither their understanding nor intent.
"We're not taxing the Internet, and we've made that clear," said Councilwoman Margaret McAustin. "We introduced an ordinance confirming it's not an Internet tax and the Internet will not be taxed in Pasadena."
Despite what Measure D may technically enable, the council's intent is affirmed by a companion ordinance approved last week to prohibit an Internet-access tax without a vote of the people, Bogaard said.
A future council would be unable to overturn that ordinance, he added.
Lusvardi called on Measure D proponents to change their ballot statements.
Citizens for Responsible Government "demands that the Pasadena City Clerk initiate litigation by Monday's deadline to strike from the mayor's ballot argument his false statement that Measure D does not tax Internet access," he said in a statement.
Working closely with Lusvardi and Amy is political consultant Martin Truitt.
Among its objections, the suit brought by Rodriguez disputes that language in Measure D would "force" the city to enact the tax should the federal moratorium on any Internet tax expire.
Officials will ask the judge to change the wording from "force" to "allow" or "permit" a tax on Internet access, according to court documents.
The Measure D language in question, Colantuono said, is designed to give city officials the option to expand the tax without having to hold another election.
"What this paragraph is intended to do is allow the city to shrink its tax, if federal and state law ever allows it to, and allow the city to expand its tax, if federal and state law allows it to, without having to go back to the voters," Colantuono said.
Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said the interests of taxpayers are rarely in the thoughts of staffers at City Hall, who depend on public funds.
"I wasn't outraged that they'd be asking for an Internet tax but that they're not being honest about it," he said. "If this tax continuation looks more benign by denying there is any impact on the Internet, they're not likely to rush to correct the record."
If the public feels the city has misrepresented the City Council-approved ballot measure, he said people should want to know what their elected officials knew and when.
"Ultimately, the public can only hold the elected officials accountable because they are the ones that take advice from city staff and are responsible for hiring the lawyers," Vosburgh said.
The spectre of an Internet tax helped defeat a similar measure in Covina in the spring and could have implications for other cities.
Colantuono has written similar language into utility tax ballot measures throughout the state, including Los Angeles.
Voters in many more cities, however, have passed such utility tax measures.
Utility taxes are levied in more than 100 cities and four counties in California.
Pasadena Star News, December 8, 2007
As city's legal fees rise, confusion persists
Rosemead reviews law firms' contracts
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - The decision to hire two law firms for municipal work is proving costly and confusing, city officials said.
The law firm Garcia, Calderon and Ruiz was hired in April to take over as the city's and redevelopment agency's attorney. But half of the firm's work was taken away in September when Burke, Williams and Sorensen was hired to represent the redevelopment agency.
City officials said the move would help reduce attorney's fees. But since then, attorney's bills are higher than in past years, and officials can't agree on how to divvy up the responsibilities.
"As of today, there still needs to be more clarification," Mayor John Tran said.
Confusion remains on whether Garcia's firm will be representing the Planning Commission or if that duty should be passed on to Burke, Williams and Sorensen. The City Council on Tuesday requested to review both firms' contracts and to discuss it at a future meeting.
The Planning Commission handles issues related to land use, and Burke, Williams and Sorensen was hired to represent the city on those matters. But Garcia's firm is still representing the commission.
Councilwoman Margaret Clark is concerned the city is being overcharged by Garcia's firm.
City Attorney Bonifacio Garcia has charged the city nearly $164,000 for five months of work, including an August bill for $17,622, and a May bill for $56,440.
Burke, Williams and Sorensen charged $5,612 for the month of September.
"I've been disappointed in the billing and the performance," Clark said referring to Garcia's firm.
In the meantime, the city is also paying its former law firm, Wallin, Cress, Reisman and Kranitz, for several cases it is handling. During six months, the firm has charged nearly $30,000, including $1,862 a month for health insurance.
City Manager Oliver Chi said the council has addressed ways to control Garcia's attorney's fees, and they are beginning to see the effects now.
"We are at a better place today at our legal costs than several months ago," he said.
Garcia's high bills prompted the city to place a cap on his contract, limiting him to $30,000 a month.
"I am satisfied with the type of work and legal advice that his firm has provided," Tran said.
Rosemead has budgeted legal fees at $265,000 for the 2007-08 fiscal year, and Chi expects the fees to exceed the budget.
"It falls in line with what we have already set aside for what we've budgeted," Tran said. "We took action to decrease our legal bills, and I think that it is working."
Whittier Daily News, November 26, 2007
City's views on new Wal-Mart improve
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - It's been a little more than a year since the store that was the source of debates, lawsuits and a recall effort opened in the city.
But a topic that once drew hundreds of upset opponents only drew a handful of residents on Monday, who attended a meeting to complain about the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Walnut Grove Avenue.
Residents said at a Wal-Mart building review Monday that noise, run-away shopping carts and increased traffic are continual problems.
"The fact that people aren't here tonight is not an indication that all is well," said Yuki Fukumoto, a Wal-Mart neighbor and Rosemead resident. "We've gone from a quiet, residential neighborhood to a noisy street."
But officials say that business at the Wal-Mart Supercenter at 1827 Walnut Grove Ave. is meeting all expectations.
"It is doing better than I anticipated," Store Manager Jorge Lopez said.
Whether it was the dozens of satisfied building requirements or the promise of delivering groceries at low prices, Lopez said the store has "lived up to our end."
City records show that Wal-Mart has satisfied nearly all of its required conditions for approval. There are three outstanding conditions: electrical transformers need to go underground and there is confusion whether an existing sound wall is satisfactory.
Planning Administrator Matt Everling said the staff will follow up with these concerns and report the information back to the planning commission at a future date.
In Wal-Mart on Tuesday, women got their nails done, kids ate at the McDonald's, and shoppers walked out of the store, their carts full of groceries, baby clothes and toilet paper.
"I think that the community response has been overwhelmingly positive," Lopez said.
Monterey Park resident Betty Sarvegna shops at the Rosemead store about once a month.
"The prices for groceries are more affordable than compared to other stores," she said.
Financial targets have been hit, city building conditions have been met, and customers seem to be happy, Lopez said.
Tiffany Moffatt, community spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said that the company "typically doesn't release specific sales and performance numbers."
"But I can tell you we are extremely pleased with the fact that it has been very well received in the market," Moffatt said. "It's exceeded our expectations."
City Manager Oliver Chi did not release how much money in sales-tax revenue has been produced from Wal-Mart because that information is "privileged and confidential."
The Singtao Daily reported on Sept. 9, that Councilman John Nunez released a "classified document" stating that the first quarter of the year Wal-Mart paid $160,000 in sales-tax revenue, which is $60,000 more than expected.
On Monday, about six residents voiced their concerns.
"For some of the residents that live close by, there is still a concern, especially with noise," said Mayor John Tran.
Tran, who voted against the approval of Wal-Mart, said the store has become more integral to the community. The store has sponsored several schools, city events and local clubs.
"I think that people have a little bit different perception of the Wal-Mart today," Lopez said.
Marlene Shinen, a San Gabriel resident, said she was upset that Wal-Mart shopping carts can be spotted throughout the city.
Councilwoman Margaret Clark said that problem is not unique to the city or the store.
"We have shopping cart problems everywhere," Clark said. "And we have an ordinance for fixing that."
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, November 25, 2007
Pasadena women top area municipal pay list
By Kenneth Todd Ruiz, Staff Writer
Three women earn the largest salaries at Pasadena's City Hall and are the highest-paid municipal officials in the San Gabriel Valley.
Outgoing City Manager Cynthia Kurtz tops that list with a salary of $235,928. City Attorney Michele Bagneris earns $216,358 and utilities chief Phyllis Currie falls just short of $200,000, with $197,103.
On a per-capita basis, Kurtz ranks low among her peers in other cities. Earning the most, based on how many residents she serves, is Bradbury City Manager Jennifer Vasquez, who is paid $80,000 each year in a city with fewer than 1,000 people.
But then, that's on the low-end for a city manager's gig - the next lowest paid is Anthony Ybarra of South El Monte at $129,842.
To discern what city employees are paid should take nothing more than a telephone call - no deep-throated sources, clandestine Dumpster dives or computer hacking required.
The information in this story does not include any comparisons to West Covina and San Dimas - the two cities which have yet to provide figures for actual employee salaries.
Social taboos attached to discussing pay are trumped by the public's right to know how its money is being used, said Steve Levin, political reform project director at Center for Governmental Studies.
"On the one hand, you want to respect the officials' privacy," Levin said. "But the more important concern is the public's concern of knowing what public officials are making, whether they deserve what they're making, whether they're overpaid or underpaid, and how that compares to people in other jurisdictions."
In a landmark decision, the state Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the public's right to know after a Bay Area newspaper sued to regain access to payroll data in Oakland.
"There was a city council and mayoral election at the time, and they were being pressured by the public unions to not disclose the information," said Kevin Keane, executive editor of the Contra Costa Times. "The feeling was some of the people running for office caved into the unions' demands. The Contra Costa Times sued for full disclosure for all public records."
In a unanimous decision, the court rejected appeals from public employees' unions and ruled in favor the Times, a sister paper to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
Almost every city polled in the San Gabriel Valley readily responded to requests for salary information.
Pasadena required a few days to "collect the information." Arcadia responded within an hour by e-mail.
Some asked for other cities' information for comparison purposes.
Not to say all cities feel the same.
West Covina responded to a request for actual salaries by providing ranges and has not responded to further requests.
Claremont City Attorney Sonia Carvalho has come under criticism for asking Google to shut down a blog which posted pay information.
That blog, Claremont Insider, posted paycheck data - excluding Social Security numbers - its operators pulled from a document archive on the city's own Web site.
Coming from the corporate banking world, Mayor Bill Bogaard said publicizing employees' pay can create unrest as some will wonder "why the hell am I making less than the next guy?"
He was surprised to learn actual salaries - not just ranges - were for public consumption.
In the public arena, he agreed disclosure was necessary for transparency and said the ascension of Kurtz, Bagneris and Currie to the top fit Pasadena's desire for its leadership to "be reflective of the diversity of its residents and communities."
Pasadena Star News, November 12, 2007
Cities reconsider 30-day impounding of cars
The law is meant to discourage unlicensed driving. But some officials say it is too harsh and puts an unfair burden on immigrants and the poor
By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
After the city of Los Angeles' brief moratorium on impounding the cars of unlicensed drivers, two other cities have moved to end their 30-day impounds, which they say place an unfair financial burden on illegal immigrants and low-income residents.
Bell Gardens, which modified its policy in September, and Huntington Park, which approved the change last month, now allow drivers to reclaim cars immediately instead of waiting a month and paying the hundreds of dollars often required to get a car back.
The moves by those cities are part of a renewed push by some in California to soften the state law that requires impounding of vehicles driven by unlicensed drivers.
Huntington Park City Atty. Francisco Leal said the law imposes an unfair hardship on many drivers.
"This will take away the most egregious part of the law, that is, the 30-day period," Leal said. "There is no way these people can afford that."
Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the law was intended to be harsh to ensure that drivers have licenses.
"Losing your car for a day isn't enough of a threat to convince people it's not worth the risk," he said.
But opponents maintain that the punishment goes way beyond the offense. They say the law has essentially become a weapon to punish illegal immigrants, who cannot get driver's licenses.
"The hardship on these families is just phenomenal," said Cynthia Anderson-Barker, who filed a lawsuit against the state and several cities challenging the 30-day impounds. "When the car is gone and the family . . . loses their transportation, it pushes them further into poverty."
The impound issue surfaced in August when the Los Angeles Police Department decided to halt the practice, saying it might be unconstitutional.
The LAPD's move was partly based on a 2005 U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case ruling that impounding a legally parked car was an unreasonable seizure of private property when there was no reasonable threat to public safety.
The city attorney's office later determined that the impound law did not violate the constitution in most cases, and the LAPD resumed impounding in September.
With no definitive legal guidance, cities have adopted a mishmash of enforcement policies.
"Each agency, I think, looks at it differently," said Maywood Police Cmdr. Frank Hauptmann. "We all know what the law says -- it really is a matter of how flexible the city wants to be."
Last year, the department started releasing cars before the elapse of the 30-day period, Hauptmann said.
"The problem is people can't afford to get their cars out," he said. "They don't have a car to take their kids to school or go to work."
In Bell Gardens, police do not hold the cars of unlicensed drivers for 30 days unless the driver is a repeat offender, said Police Chief Andreas Probst. "To hold their cars for 30 days would be an economic hardship for them," he said. "I don't think it would be good public relations."
South Gate police routinely keep such cars for 30 days, though supervisors have some discretion to make exceptions, said Sgt. Keith Underwood. The monthlong impound is important because it gets the unlicensed drivers off the street, he said.
"Everybody has got to have a driver's license as far as we are concerned," he said. "If you don't have a driver's license, you are less likely to have insurance, and if there is a traffic accident, somebody has to be on the hook."
Immigrant rights groups have pushed lawmakers in Sacramento to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, but the bills have been rejected.
State Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), who has sponsored several such bills, said he has been pushing city and police officials throughout the state to change their impound policies.
Cedillo said he was pleased that some cities have altered their policies but would like to see cities and counties stop towing entirely.
He said a statewide moratorium would be legal, citing an analysis by the state legislative council that said the simple fact of a driver's being unlicensed was not enough justification to impound a vehicle.
But Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform countered that ending impounds would send the signal that cities welcome illegal immigrants.
"Obviously, these are local governments who have been inclined to accommodate illegal immigrants in every way possible," he said.
Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2007
Council OKs newsletter
Some say timing helps incumbents
By Sandra T. Molina, Staff Writer
MONTEBELLO - The city will be mailing a newsletter that could leave it open to legal risk after a 3-2 vote by the council, officials said.
About a dozen people attended a special council meeting Tuesday morning called by Mayor Norma Lopez-Reid to discuss behind closed doors the mass mailing of a city-funded newsletter, Montebello Today, with the names of council members printed on it.
"There's nothing time-sensitive in it to stop us from mailing it until after the election," said Councilman Bill Molinari, who along with Councilwoman Rosie Vasquez voted against sending it this week.
"The timing only matters to those who are running for re-election," he said during a meeting that had heated exchanges between some of its members.
Lopez-Reid and Councilman Bob Bagwell, who are the incumbents in the Nov. 8 election race, and Councilman Jeff Siccama, who is mired in a Dec. 18 recall election, voted in favor of the glossy mailers being sent immediately.
"The city attorney gave us his opinion, and it's each council member's right to make our own decision," Siccama said.
Molinari said City Attorney Arnoldo Beltran in the one-hour closed session advised them that the mailer opens Montebello up to potential litigation.
Vasquez confirmed that, saying, "The attorney was explicit that we will be at risk."
Beltran said he was unable to speak about what he told the council behind closed doors.
"They are taking the risk only because it's a political advantage for them," Molinari said.
Vasquez said city officials, specifically Lopez-Reid, have been warned in the past about bulk mailings.
"You do not need to implicate me," Lopez-Reid said, raising her voice as the two women tried to talk over each other.
Molinari said the California Fair Political Practices Commission told the city it violated the bulk-mailing law in 1999 when Lopez-Reid signed a mailer sent to senior citizens about the Dial-A-Ride program.
Molinari said it cost more than the $1,000 limit on bulk mailings that are endorsed by elected officials and paid for with city funds. Also, the number of mailings went beyond a 199 limit.
"These candidates are desperate," Vasquez said. "How low can you be to use taxpayers' money to get elected?"
Last published in 2004, Montebello Today is paid for by Montebello Tomorrow Inc., a nonprofit corporation founded in the 1970s to help publicize city activities.
Interim City Administrator Randy Narramore said the council approved a newsletter in August 2006 and that it was paid for before his arrival in April.
"There's been a push for it to be completed and mailed since I got here," he said.
The cost of the newsletter is about $12,000, Molinari said. The funds for Montebello Tomorrow come from the city and its Redevelopment Agency, officials said. The newsletter, which is four pages and in full color, was delivered to the post office Tuesday afternoon, Narramore said.
About 20,000 will be mailed to residents.
Members of the public were split on the mailing being sent on the eve of the election.
"To be denied information about the city for any reason is a violation of our rights," said Jacqueline Carr.
Steve Stokes said the newsletter was a political tool being used by the incumbents.
"If this information is so important, it will still be after the election," he said.
The rest of the candidates for City Council - Giuseppe "Joe" Veneziano, Robert Urteaga, Kathy Salazar and Leo Rodriguez - were also on hand.
They thought the mailer should be sent after the election so there could be no misrepresentation about its motivation.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, October 31, 2007
Report: Release of pay stubs an error
By Will Bigham, Staff Writer
CLAREMONT - The release of city employee pay stubs through the city's Web site was caused by human error, according to a report commissioned by the city.
The report confirms claims made by the Claremont Insider blog that the information was available on the city's online public document archive.
The report also confirms that there was no security breach or theft related to the release of the pay stubs.
"I regret the error was made, but human error is a natural phenomenon that occurs in life," City Manager Jeff Parker said.
The pay stubs were inadvertently placed on the city's Web site while the Information Technology Department was working to change the procedures used to archive payroll documents, said Steve Senkle, the city's IT manager.
"There are rights as to what folders and files get put on public access versus private," Parker said. "And at some point in time those rights were modified in our system, which then made those folders public."
The city has taken steps to shore up the security of the online document archive, and officials said Thursday that they expected the archive back online by the end of the day.
"We purchased additional licensing for the software that allows us to create two additional databases, separate databases within the system, so that confidential records can be separated from public records," Senkle said.
"That being the case, it won't be possible in the future for this mistake to result in confidential records being made available because our confidential database will not be connected in any way to the Internet."
On Sept. 7, the Claremont Insider blog posted a scanned copy of Parker's pay stub, along with salary and benefit information for city employees who were identified by name.
In response, the city shut down its public document archive and sent a letter to Google, which hosts the blog, demanding that the post be removed and demanding that the hosting service for the blog be terminated.
In addition to the pay stubs accessed by the blog, additional payroll-related files were accessible on the city's Web site, including pension slips and other documents that included Social Security numbers and bank account information, Parker said.
City officials declined to state how long the information had been available on the city's Web site.
Parker said the report will not be forwarded to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, as he had previously stated, because the report shows that there was no theft involved in the release of the documents.
A two-week investigation into the release of the pay stubs was conducted by Michael Fitzpatrick, CEO of the NCX Group.
Fitzpatrick said that as more information and filing systems have become electronic, his company has seen similar problems occur in other organizations.
"It's potentially a problem for public agencies, for private organizations, as anything becomes electronic in nature," Fitzpatrick said. "The more we rely on it, the more opportunity there is for mistakes to be made."
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, October 19, 2007
Lawsuit alleges city is hostile
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD -- Two men who are suing Rosemead for unpaid wages said "intimidation" and "fear" pervade City Hall.
Longtime Rosemead employees Randy Haro, who quit in May, and Robert Ballin, who is on disability, filed a lawsuit against the city nearly three weeks ago.
In the lawsuit, Haro and Ballin allege that the city failed to pay them -- as well as up to 40 other employees — in both regular and overtime wages.
"I want what I deserve," said Ballin, a Baldwin Park resident. "This city was a beautiful city to work for. Now, forget it."
The city is investigating the allegations, said City Manager Oliver Chi.
"We've referred this over to the (Joint Powers Insurance Authority) and our legal counsel," Chi said Friday. "And we're auditing our financial records."
Haro, 46, said he believes the city owes him at least $40,000.
"But it isn't about the money, it's the principle," Haro said.
In the last two years, both employees, who have worked nearly 30 years combined, said that after an upheaval among the staff and city council, they were encouraged to quit, did not receive raises and took a cut in benefits.
"I feel there is a hostile work environment," Haro said. "It is very uncomfortable, and people are very afraid to say anything because they think they'll get fired."
Similar claims surfaced recently from Councilman Gary Taylor, who alleges that a private investigator reported city employees were exposed to a hostile work environment and stayed silent in fear of getting fired.
Mayor John Tran said he thinks Haro is just "jumping on the bandwagon with Gary, which is a shame."
Tran added that since the staff is not hired by the council, there is no direct authority over the employees.
Councilwoman Margaret Clark, who has been on the council for nearly 17 years, disagrees.
"The hostile work environment is definitely there," Clark said. "Maybe a change in the council would solve it."
The city received the lawsuit Oct. 3. It was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Sept. 25.
It alleges employees were asked to work "off-the-clock." On other occasions they were paid "straight-time instead of time and one-half their regular rates of pay when performing work in excess of 40 hours per week — or not paid at all," the lawsuit states.
City Manager Chi said there was never any indication during prior discussions with Haro or Ballin that they were not being paid.
"Employees generally know if they are not being compensated," Chi said. "If this would have been happening, I am sure we would have heard about it sooner."
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, October 14, 2007
Council votes to report member
ROSEMEAD - A councilman could be ousted from office if a grand jury finds that he was violating the state's open-meeting laws, experts said Wednesday.
The City Council voted 3-1-1 Tuesday to report Gary Taylor to the Los Angeles County grand jury for releasing confidential information about sexual harassment allegations against Councilman John Nunez.
Terry Francke, general counsel of Californians Aware, a nonprofit, open-government organization, said if Taylor is found guilty of violating the Ralph M. Brown Act, he could lose his seat.
"It is a little like a local impeachment," Francke said.
The Brown Act is the state's open-meeting law.
Nunez joined Mayor John Tran and City Councilwoman Polly Low in voting to send the case to the grand jury. City Councilwoman Margaret Clark voted against the move. Taylor abstained.
Council members allege Taylor leaked private information to the public during repeated verbal and written requests for an investigative sexual harassment report. The report was presented during a closed-door meeting in April.
"I'd like to refer Gary Taylor to the grand jury for criminal prosecution for violating the Brown Act," Low said.
The confidential report included comments from staff members who were interviewed by a private investigator hired after a finance employee accused Nunez of sexual harassment. Nunez denies the claim.
City Attorney Bonifacio Garcia said releasing such confidential information is a violation of the Brown Act and could be punished as a misdemeanor.
Garcia said the city will file a complaint with both the District Attorney's Office and the grand jury.
Deputy District Attorney Dave Demerjian, head of the public integrity division, said that while the City Council could report Taylor to the grand jury, Taylor can't be criminally prosecuted.
"Releasing confidential information is not a crime," said Demerjian, who added he has not received a complaint from Rosemead against Taylor.
According the Brown Act, a person may not disclose information presented and discussed during a closed-session meeting. Punishments for violating the prohibition include injunctive relief, disciplinary action or referral to the county grand jury.
The council's action Tuesday satisfies requests by Taylor, who previously challenged the council to report him the grand jury with the hope that information released in the investigative report would be made public.
"You have jeopardized all the employees of Rosemead," Taylor said on Tuesday. "The truth is going to come out now or later."
Taylor thanked the council for its decision.
"Thank you, Mrs. Low," Taylor said. "The grand jury is on its way."
Francke said if the case goes forward, a prosecutor would have to lay out what was reported during closed session and what was disclosed by Taylor.
"Ultimately, if this were to be tried, they would have to be very specific," Francke said, "and have to disclose what was learned in closed session."
During open meetings in recent months, Taylor alleged that an investigator, Tess Elconin, reported during a closed-session meeting that the city employees were exposed to a hostile work environment and stayed silent for fear of being fired.
In an Oct. 2 letter to the City Council, Taylor requested that the council authorize Elconin to complete the report.
"If the City Council agrees to completing the report it will protect your integrity and honesty," he wrote.
Low, who made the motion to recommend Taylor to the grand jury, said she was frustrated and disappointed with his repeated violations of the law.
"We had to put a stop to this," Low said after the meeting Tuesday night.
Tran admonished Taylor Tuesday night.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," Tran said. "You broke the law and compromised the taxpayers."
City Manager Oliver Chi said he expects the complaints to be filed by the end of the next week.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, October 11, 2007
City attorney clarifies letter's intent
Carvalho says she didn't ask Claremont blog be shut down
By Will Bigham, Staff Writer
CLAREMONT - City Attorney Sonia Carvalho delivered an emotional statement during Tuesday night's City Council meeting denying that she intended to demand, in her letter to Google, that the company terminate the Claremont Insider blog.
On Sept. 7, the anonymously penned blog posted a scanned copy of City Manager Jeff Parker's pay stub, along with salary and benefit information of city employees who were identified by name.
In response, Carvalho sent a letter to Google later that day demanding that the company remove the post and "terminate the hosting service for this blog to prevent further violations."
Carvalho said that when she sent the letter, she had incomplete information on what the blog possessed, and she feared that the blog would publish more copies of employee pay stubs, which she believes contain personal employee information.
"I have to tell you in hindsight I can see how the structure of the letter, the raised statement in the letter, and the demand itself might appear offensive to those who abhor the idea of prior restraint," Carvalho said.
The intent of the letter was not to demand that the blog be shut down completely, Carvalho said, but that Google "honor its privacy policies in the event that further breaches of employee privacy occurred."
Since the content of Carvalho's letter to Google was revealed last week, the city attorney has been criticized for her actions.
"I've been personally attacked by the blogs, and I have to admit to you it doesn't feel good," Carvalho said. "And if the aim of those bloggers were to make me suffer personal pain, then they've succeeded."
Carvalho's statement came after Dean McHenry, president of Active Claremont, admonished the city for its actions.
"I think that's the first time since this city was founded 100 years ago that you've gone to the extent of demanding the shutdown of a news source," McHenry said.
Michael Keenan, former City Council candidate, used his time at the public microphone to read aloud for nearly six minutes a list of salary and benefit figures for city employees, whom he identified by name.
The investigation by an outside consultant into the pay stub leak has been completed, and the final report was delivered to City Manager Jeff Parker on Monday afternoon, Assistant City Manager Tony Ramos said Wednesday.
Ramos said that Parker had not finished reading the report, and did not indicate when the document would be released to the public.
"After (Parker) reads it, he will tell me what's next," Ramos said.
Inland Dally Bulletin, October 10, 2007
Report: Workers in hostile setting
Councilman calling for expanded inquiry
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - An investigator found that city employees were exposed to a hostile work environment and stayed silent for fears of getting fired, a councilman claims.
Rosemead Councilman Gary Taylor, in a letter to the council, said Tess Elconin was concerned about statements employees made during her investigation into a sexual harassment claim lodged against Councilman John Nunez. Taylor said "many of the 22 employees gave information of a hostile work environment."
Taylor has requested a public copy of Elconin's findings. He now wants her to expand her investigation.
"(Elconin) is concerned about items above and beyond Nunez," he said Monday.
Nunez declined to comment on Taylor's request.
"That is something my lawyers are working with," he said.
Elconin started the review in March. Nunez denies all the allegations.
The City Council is expected to vote today on whether the investigator should expand her inquiry.
"I believe the entire City Council is guilty of misfeasance by not taking actions to protect the Rosemead employees," Taylor wrote in an Oct. 2 letter to the council.
City Clerk Nina Castruita said no claims related to harassment or a hostile work environment have been filed within the past six months.
Councilwoman Polly Low said Taylor can have access to the information in closed-session meetings.
"There is no cover-up," Low said. "My problem is that he doesn't have all the information and is making assumptions."
At a Sept. 25 meeting, Elconin presented council members with a report in a closed-door meeting. Taylor refused to attend, saying he wants the information made public. At an earlier meeting, he said the findings should be sent to the District Attorney's Office or another law enforcement agency. That request was denied.
"I've exhausted my avenues in the city of Rosemead," Taylor said. "I'll ask (the city attorney) what he recommends."
City Attorney Bonifacio Garcia previously accused Taylor of violating state law by releasing private information.
The councilman challenged the city to file a complaint with the DA if they believed he broke the law.
"I'm hoping to get this straightened out so employees aren't fearful of talking about anything," Taylor said. "I'm trying to find out what they're doing to our employees."
Pasadena Star News, October 9, 2007
City wants blog pulled
Officials ask Google to terminate Claremont Insider
By Will Bigham, Staff Writer
CLAREMONT - The day the Claremont Insider blog posted a scan of City Manager Jeff Parker's pay stub, City Attorney Sonia Carvalho contacted Google and demanded that the company "terminate the hosting service for this blog to prevent future violations."
City officials had previously said they only demanded that Google, which hosts the blog, remove the offending post.
The demand to terminate the blog was contained in a letter sent by Carvalho to Google on Sept. 7.
The letter was released by the city after a public records request for the document was made by the Daily Bulletin.
Carvalho's letter also states that the information in the blog post "was obtained in an illegal manner that appears to have involved trespass theft."
The Claremont Insider blog, which is penned anonymously, has claimed it obtained copies of 283 city employee pay stubs through a legal search of the city's public documents archive.
After the blog obtained the information, it posted a copy of Parker's pay stub, later also posting the pay stub of Jeff Porter, director of human services.
The blog also posted the salaries and benefit figures of several dozen city employees.
In the days after being contacted by the city, Google removed the post and instructed the Claremont Insider not to re-post the pay stubs, claiming the pay stubs were copyrighted documents. The company did not terminate the blog.
Mayor Peter Yao said the demand for the blog to be terminated was appropriate because the city was attempting to remove "private, privileged employee information."
"I think it's one and the same," said Yao, referring to the city's demand that Google both remove the offending post and terminate the blog. "We were really addressing the issue of making public a lot of private, privileged employee information. I take them to be the same and not separate."
Councilman Sam Pedroza questioned the appropriateness of the city's demand, saying "it's not the role of the city to make a request like that."
Pedroza, however, remains very critical of the blog, which typically takes aim in its posts at prominent city leaders, including Pedroza.
"I always felt that the blog was nothing more than a negative political thing against me, so honestly I would be more than happy to see that thing get off the Internet," Pedroza said. "But it is what it is, and I don't know how legally the city could make that request (to terminate the blog)."
A city investigation into how the pay stubs were leaked remains under way, Parker said. He said the city hopes to complete its investigation in a week.
Parker said the city has not been able to confirm claims made by the blog that the documents were available on the city's Web site.
The city disabled its public document archive in the days following the initial blog post, and the archive remains down.
Parker said the archive will not be back up until the city's investigation, conducted by an outside specialist, is complete.
Parker also said that the city contacted the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in the days following the initial blog post and notified the agency of a potential theft of city documents.
Parker said the city will forward additional information to the Sheriff's Department when its internal investigation is complete.
"There are two issues," Parker said. "How did the information get there, and was it done appropriately? And two, is it in the hands of somebody who is inappropriate?
"If there's information out there that is privileged and private, and it's not public information, then it's against the law for somebody to have that information."
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, October 4, 2007
Mario's Tow Truck Troubles
A state senator comes to the aid of a pal facing legal and political problems in Bell Gardens. But at what cost?
by Jeffery Anderson
With a tough election seven weeks away in Bell Gardens, State Senator Gil Cedillo ventured into the working-class city to help out a protege' who could be in deep trouble: Councilman Mario Beltran.
Cedillo stood side-by-side at a press conference with Beltran, a young, trouble-prone politico with a criminal record and called for an end to a widespread police policy of impounding the cars of unlicensed drivers for 30 days. It made good local political theater and armed Beltran to fight for a just cause. Within a matter of days, he persuaded his colleagues on the City Council to end the practice. In Bell Gardens, stuck in the rough-and-tumble belt of heavily immigrant cities that lie southeast of downtown Los Angeles, the high cost of towing penalties often meant the owner lost the car.
But more was on Cedillo's mind that September day than notching up one more city in his statewide crusade to renounce the draconian 30-day impound. The state senator also wanted to help his former field advisor and close friend of his son, Gil Jr., beat a possible rap. Months ago, investigators from various law enforcement agencies began examining whether Beltran helped cut a special deal that gave the tow truck operator, United Motor Club, a five-year monopoly worth millions of dollars in Bell Gardens. District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said Beltran and the tow truck operator are under investigation by the LAPD, the D.A.'s Office and the FBI. Warrants served in June at Beltran's home and office suggest that authorities are looking for possible criminal conflicts of interest related to Beltran's political consulting firm, Americas Consulting Group, and the towing firm.
Cedillo himself underscored the strong message sent that day when Beltran joined him at the press conference to denounce the 30-day impound policy that enriches the city's tow truck operator. Says Cedillo: "He has my full, unwavering support. I think that the fact that he led the charge to rescind the towing ordinance rebuts completely any charge of conflict of interest."�
Now that Beltran's problems may not be limited to winning reelection in November, Cedillo makes a point of saying that he will not turn his back on the man he nurtured in the political process. For Cedillo, it simply doesn't matter that Beltran was convicted in March of filing a false police report, after an embarrassing incident in which he woke up drunk in a downtown L.A. prostitute hotel.
But Cedillo's own political fortunes could be intertwined in the outcome of the Beltran matter in ways that raise questions about the powerful role that tow truck companies play in local and statewide politics. Thousands of dollars in contributions to elected officials statewide were made, including some to Cedillo, the vice chair of the state legislature's Latino Caucus, by United Motor Club and a second firm, Maywood Club Towing.
Together, the two companies control contracts worth millions of dollars in four cities: Maywood, Bell Gardens, South Gate, and Cudahy. And since 2000, the two companies and various family members, employees and associates have contributed more than $120,000 to L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, Assemblyman Kevin DeLeon, Cedillo, and a number of other progressive Democrats, including Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, according to a CityBeat review of campaign finance reports.
To further complicate political peace in Bell Gardens and beyond, the D.A.'s Office last week charged United Motor Club's former point man in Bell Gardens. A three-time felon, accused drug trafficker named Shahram Shayesteh faces charges of obstructing a government official and making a criminal threat during a three-way phone conversation that Beltran set up with his political rival, Bell Gardens Councilman Daniel Crespo. According to LAPD Lieutenant Paul Vernon, police are investigating Beltran's role in Shayesteh�'s alleged threats to Councilman Crespo, and are sharing the fruits of their investigation with the FBI.
Cedillo, whose presence in the troubled waters of Bell Gardens worries some of his political colleagues, told CityBeat he's not sure if he's met the man behind United Motor Club. "I don't think I've ever spoken to him. I don't think I have any recollection of him, but I don't know."�
Yet, through the avenue of political contributions, the towing companies can remain nameless and faceless, yet insinuate themselves into the fabric of the state's political culture every day.
The dark history of Shayestah
Days after the May Day melee in MacArthur Park in which the LAPD roughed up immigrant protestors and members of the media, a number of L.A. officials gathered on a stage in the park to ease tensions in the Latino community. Three of the officials present -- although the event did not specifically address driver's license or impound issues -- Villaraigosa, Nunez, and DeLeon -- received generous campaign donations from Maywood Club Towing.
Maywood Club Towing is a company that is owned by Tooradj Khosroabadi, an Iranian who also is known as "Tony Bravo."� He is the brother-in-law of United Motor Club's Shahram Shayesteh, according to Bell Gardens city officials and law enforcement sources.
Last November, less than a month after Shayesteh met with Beltran and his ally on the council, Mayor Jennifer Rodriguez, at an Applebees Restaurant in Bell Gardens, he attended a City Council meeting, represented himself as a "manager and spokesman"� for United Motor Club, and walked out with an exclusive five-year franchise agreement to tow cars for the police in Bell Gardens. At the time, he was under indictment in two federal drug trafficking cases, one involving an international opium smuggling ring that allegedly extends from Iran to Germany to Los Angeles. He has since been dismissed from that case, and pleaded guilty of lying to federal investigators in another drug case and is expected to get probation and no time.
United Motor Club told Bell Gardens officials that Shayesteh was merely a contractor who helped them sell unclaimed cars. He has since been fired by the company.
In one of the drug trafficking cases, Tony Bravo liquidated real estate to post a bond on Shayesteh�'s behalf, according to court records. At the same time, Tony Bravo was being accused of giving kickbacks to police and local officials in Maywood, and about to come under investigation by the FBI, according to elected officials and police sources in Maywood. That probe is ongoing, law enforcement sources say.
Shayesteh is described in government affidavits sworn by agents with Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement as an opium addict with a gambling problem. He has been convicted of fraud in New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Arizona, and was indicted in two drug trafficking cases in federal court in Los Angeles in 2005.
Shayesteh, according to his own sworn declaration filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, and sworn declarations by his handlers with the Department of Homeland Security, is a government snitch associated with alleged drug traffickers. Before 2005, he provided federal agents with information about opium trafficking from Mexico to El Paso and El Paso to Los Angeles, and about illegal activities within the Iranian-American community in Los Angeles. He has served time in federal prison for credit card fraud.
One of the cases involves an alleged international drug trafficking and money-laundering ring involving a jewelry design store in downtown Los Angeles owned by a man named Mehrdad Lari, a wealthy Santa Monica businessman.
According to a federal indictment, in 2003, German authorities and the Drug Enforcement Administration seized close to 600 pounds of opium -- valued at $5.4 million once processed into heroin -- from an international drug organization that extends to Los Angeles, where Lari is known as the "boss of the bosses."� According to the indictment, Lari would sell opium from Germany and Iran -- smuggled into the U.S. in false bottomed suitcases -- wire the money to international locations, buy property and vehicles, set up limited liability companies, and refinance homes and property in a complex scheme to launder the drug proceeds. Lari pleaded guilty to using a phone to commit a felony drug offense; on March 27, he was sentenced to four years in federal prison.
According to court documents, the transactions that led to Shayesteh�'s arrest involved $64,000 in checks deposited to Lari�'s jewelry company account, Mallery Design, which federal authorities allege is a front for purifying and selling opium and laundering money. The checks came from a company owned by Shayesteh called KBR Coachworks, also known as Regal Auto Sales, according to court documents.
Several months ago, the U.S. Attorney's Office dismissed Shayesteh from the case against Lari and a dozen others, however, for lack of evidence that he acted in a conspiracy to deal drugs and launder money. He claimed checks from KBR Coachworks to Mallery Design were loans.
Then, a month or so later, a second drug trafficking case involving the seizure of eight pounds of opium from Shayesteh�'s Reseda apartment fell apart and ended in his conviction for lying to investigators.
A review of court documents shows that Homeland Security's immigration and customs enforcement agents botched the second case with an illegal search of Shayesteh�'s residence that the court later invalidated -- despite Shayesteh�'s admission, according to documents, that he "got involved"� with an associate who "smuggled two kilos in."� Meanwhile, Shayesteh cooperated with authorities by telling them about international drug smuggling from Mexico and criminal activity in the Iranian community in L.A., according to a sworn declaration he signed on May 31, 2007.
But it was an entirely different kind of legal matter that spurred Cedillo's interest in righting the wrongs of the 30-day impound policy.
Taking on the law
Ricardo Castillo was driving to a yard sale with his wife and kids in the family's 2004 Chevy Malibu one September day in 2005, when a Maywood police officer pulled him over for having some fabric attached to his front passenger window.
Castillo had an Arizona driver's license but no California driver's license. So the officer seized his car -- worth $12,000 but invaluable in terms of his ability to get to work -- and had Maywood Club Towing, under an exclusive contract with the city, tow it to an impound lot.
The next day, Castillo called Maywood Police Department and said that a licensed driver was available to come pick up the car. An officer told him that his car would remain impounded for 30 days.
By the time the 30 days was up, Castillo was required to pay $1,500 in fees for the towing, impound, and the release of the car. It was a price he could not afford. Instead, Castillo forfeited his car, and with it his means of travel to and from work.
Castillo�'s plight is hardly unique. Tens of thousands of immigrants in California have their cars seized each year, as cities aggressively enforce a state law that punishes unlicensed drivers -- in particular those who are not entitled to a license because of their immigrant status.
The same month, Juan Salazar, also from Maywood, had his 1990 Oldsmobile impounded because the driver lacked a valid license. Salazar was four blocks away and ready to retrieve his car, but Maywood police refused to release it. Eventually Salazar got his car back, after paying $400 to Maywood Club Towing and $200 to Maywood police.
The problem is not just in Maywood, which, according to police sources there, towed more than 17,000 cars in the last five years, before a public outcry led to a change in city policy.
From Escondido to Santa Rosa, immigrants forfeit their cars for driving without licenses because the price of another used car is less than the cost to get a seized car out of an impound. Advocacy groups say predatory towing companies and greedy cities are targeting Latino immigrants, forcing them to buy used cars that are destined for a tax lien sale.
Perhaps more troubling is that self-declared champions of working class immigrants have ascended to power at the local and state level, yet have been slow to rectify the vicious cycle of vehicle forfeiture that torments those very same working-class immigrants.
"It amounts to a municipal tax on immigrants,"� says Nativo Lopez, national director of Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamerica, who spoke one day last summer on the South Steps of Los Angeles City Hall. "The economic devastation in the immigrant community is incalculable."�
Lopez spoke to a handful of Spanish-language journalists that day, yet there wasn't an L.A. city official or politician in sight. But then, the tow truck issue -- inseparable from a decade-long debate over driver's licenses for illegal immigrants -- puts government officials in a quandary.
A federal class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court names the city and county of Los Angeles as defendants, and seeks to overturn a state law that allows for such 30-day impounds. The lawsuit, in which Salazar and Castillo are plaintiffs, charges that local governments and police agencies throughout California have violated the constitutional rights of its undocumented residents.
In addition, law enforcers believe that aggressive towing and impound policies are necessary to keep unlicensed drivers off the roads, for public safety reasons. But there might be another reason why many city and state politicians shy from the topic of city towing and impound policies.
Each year, tiny cities such as Maywood, South Gate, Cudahy, and Bell Gardens rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars in impound fees. Los Angeles takes in more than a half dozen smaller cities combined. That money can be budgeted for police purposes, or any purpose the city chooses.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn recalls the first time she became irked by L.A.'s towing policy. It was just before Christmas in 2005. Hahn wanted to see an LAPD sobriety checkpoint in action.
But sobriety was not the real reason LAPD officers were stopping cars that December day in Wilmington, in the middle of Hahn's council district.
She recalls a troubling scene: Police had pulled people over and forced them out of their cars with their belongings, including Christmas presents. Entire families were sitting on the curb by the side of the road. One family had been to a dinner party, they had dishes of tamales sitting on their laps.�
Hahn inquired if the motorists were being arrested for drunk driving, but was alarmed to find the reason entire families were having their cars towed was because the driver had no license. "It dawned on me what we were doing,"� she recalls. "I thought, what happens now?"� Police told her that the cars would be impounded for 30 days. "I was told most of them would simply go to an auction and buy another car. These were hardworking families that use their car to go to church on Sunday and work on Monday. There must have been 20 cars there. It just seemed wrong."�
Moved by what she witnessed, the councilwoman told LAPD Chief Bill Bratton she did not want these types of checkpoints in her district. She says the police stopped doing them.
Then, in June, she seconded a motion by Councilman Jose Huizar to review the mandatory 30-day hold on impounded cars, in light of a federal court of appeals ruling that, according to Cedillo, says it is unconstitutional for police to impound a car solely because the driver is driving without a license.
However, Bratton recently lifted a self-imposed moratorium on 30-day impounds and so far has faced little opposition from the City Council.
For police, the issue is a no-brainer: they point to statistics that a large number of car accidents involve unlicensed drivers. "I can't tell you how many times as a patrol officer I came up on a brutal car accident, only to find that at least one of the participants was driving without a license,"� says Detective Ben Jones of the L.A. Police Commission's Investigation Division.
For L.A. city officials, the math could be even easier. A recent report in the L.A. Times found that the city impounded 47,000 cars in 2006 because a driver had no license. Current city law allows the city to impound those cars for 30 days. Despite months of requests for public information, the LAPD failed to disclose how much money it makes from these impounds -- or how many cars are never re-claimed.
None of those in the political community who are troubled by Cedillo's rushing to the aid Beltran question the righteousness of his cause.
Risks of helping a pal
In fact, Cedillo is not the only one standing by Beltran. And that perplexes prominent local and state politicians.
State Senator Ron Calderon employs Beltran as a field deputy. Calderon's brother and sister-in-law, Tom and Marcella Calderon, held a fundraiser June 21 at their home for Beltran, according to an invitation to the event obtained by CityBeat.
Calderon has resisted calls to fire Beltran by angry constituents who fear that Beltran is not fit to represent their interests. Calderon paid more than $28,000 to Beltran for campaign workers salaries, office expenses, and reimbursement for campaign expenses from February to June 2006, FPPC reports show. Beltran's consulting firm operated out of Calderon's campaign headquarters in 2006.
Calderon refused to answer CityBeat's questions about his field deputy. One former employer of Beltran's was more talkative. Former Assemblywoman Judy Chu, now vice chair of the State Board of Equalization, hired Beltran to work as a field deputy for her Assembly office in 2005. When Chu got wind of Beltran's political consulting activities she gave him a choice: cease outside campaign and political activities, or give up his position as field deputy. Beltran walked, Chu said, and was hired by Calderon, after helping Calderon in his 2006 campaign.
"Mario seemed like a young man with high ideals,"� Chu said recently, when asked about Beltran's widely reported legal troubles and the ongoing investigations that threaten his political future. "I am extremely shocked and disappointed that he went for the trappings of an elected official. He seems to have let himself be taken by every temptation there is."�
If Chu sounds as if she is harsh on Beltran, it might be because she is troubled on other levels.
According to Chu, while Beltran was her field deputy, he also was working weekends for a downtown Los Angeles nightclub that has drawn scrutiny from police and local officials in recent months. Chu tells CityBeat that she urged Beltran to disclose his night job to the Fair Political Practices Commission. However, the commission has no record that he ever did. Nor does it have any record of Beltran's financial disclosures regarding his political consulting and campaign activities.
When Beltran was arrested earlier this year and charged with filing a false police report, he had been drinking at the same establishment where he once worked, the popular and trendy 740 Club. The nightclub and at least one of its representatives have been at the center of a number of troubling reports.
Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is considering a nuisance abatement action against the club, according to L.A. Councilman Jose Huizar, based on neighborhood disturbances and police reports of violence and gang activity.
One of the club's key representatives, Steven Carmona, a former L.A. planning commissioner who helped secure building permits, was indicted recently for allegedly taking a bribe in an unrelated federal racketeering case. So far there is no indication that Carmona's connection to the club has anything to do with Beltran.
Yet Beltran -- along with Huizar and Maywood and Huntington Park City Attorney Francisco Leal -- have hosted political fundraisers at the 740 Club. And though Beltran's actual connection to the club is unclear, it was an aspect of his life that bothered Chu. "I was increasingly concerned about his outside activities,"� she said. "He boasted of not reporting his earnings, and then we heard he was some sort of manager at this nightclub. Then he confirmed his activities as a political consultant. I didn't have a good feeling. We wanted to separate ourselves from him. It was intuition."�
Of Tom Calderon's recent fundraiser for Beltran, Chu says, "People cannot believe anyone would even attend that event, much less hold it in the first place."�
L.A. City Council President Eric Garcetti put it another way: "I can see Calderon sticking by this guy, but I don't understand Gil [Cedillo]. Obviously, Gil has strong ties in Bell Gardens. I can't believe Mario's still in office. I've had problem employees before. We deal with it quickly."�
Voters are left to wonder why an elected official like Beltran would go anywhere near Shayesteh -- and why Cedillo would stick his neck out for Beltran. Compared to federal drug and money laundering investigations and credit card fraud schemes Shayesteh has been involved with in the past, an arrest for alleged criminal threats might be just a minor inconvenience. Or maybe it will lead to other more meaningful revelations, given his self-described proclivity for cooperating with government investigators.
For Cedillo, the time is right to stand by his man in Bell Gardens. "He's not my first friend or ally to be investigated by the FBI, and he won't be the first to be completely exonerated."
Los Angeles Beat, October 4, 2007
Lynwood voters oust mayor, three city council members
Voters overwhelmingly ousted the mayor and three council members in a sweeping recall election called after years of investigations, allegations of corruption and a grandiose proposal for an NFL stadium.
Mayor Louis Byrd and council members Fernando Pedroza, Alfreddie Johnson Jr. and Leticia Vasquez were recalled by about 70 percent of voters who cast ballots in Tuesday's election.
Four months ago, the Los Angeles district attorney's office charged five current and former council members with using public funds to boost their salaries and pay for personal expenses.
The recalled politicians tried to block the special election, going as far as firing the city clerk, but a judge and the state Legislature ordered the election to proceed under the supervision of county election officials.
The ousters followed passage of steep water rate hikes earlier this year as well as a proposal to build a 70,000-seat professional football stadium, which would have razed an entire neighborhood in the working class town 15 miles south of Los Angeles.
"People just don't want to be told they may have to give up their homes," said Jim Morton, a candidate to replace Vasquez.
Two years ago, former Mayor Paul Richards was convicted of steering $500,000 worth of city contracts to a front corporation he secretly owned. He was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison.
County election officials must certify the election results and that certification must be signed by the Board of Supervisors, probably on Oct. 16, county chief deputy registrar-recorder Dean Logan said.
The remaining City Council members would normally appoint replacements, but there's only one incumbent left so another city government body will have to do that, Logan said.
City manager Roger Haley, who came from Long Beach in August, said he expected city staff and county officials to discuss what the next steps will be.
San Francisco Chronicle, September 27, 2007
Justice in Lynwood
Voters move forward with election City Hall tried to block
No matter where one stands on the many substantive issues affecting Lynwood, the recall election that threw out the mayor and three City Council members this week was a victory simply because it took place at all.
Some members of the City Council did their best to prevent voters from weighing in on their performance - even after the county clerk certified voter petitions calling for a reelection. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had to force the election after the council fired the city clerk and then refused schedule it.
Voters finally took back control of their city Tuesday. But the change may not stick if voters do not return to the polls.
Because of the election timing, three of those who replaced the recalled officials could be in their jobs for only a month. This is because the next regular city election is set for Nov. 6; two recalled officials were up for reelection anyway and are on the ballot; another recalled official wasn't up but plans to make a run after losing office.
It is easy to say the special election was redundant and a waste of money in a city that needs every penny, but in our view it was necessary because of all of the City Hall meddling that led up to it.
What was the voters' beef with them?
The four officials supported a controversial redevelopment proposal, Angeles Fields, that could displace more than 1,000 families along Atlantic Boulevard and voted to increase water rates, according to a report in the Los Angeles Wave newspaper.
In addition, two of those recalled, Mayor Louis Byrd and Councilman Fernando Pedroza, and three former officials, were accused by the district attorney of one count each of misappropriating city funds.
We won't bore you with a recap of all of the political scandals to hurt Lynwood in recent years, but one of the more recent involved a former mayor being convicted in 2005 of funneling city funds to a business in which he had an ownership stake.
No matter how these accusations pan out, or what happens with the redevelopment plan, the election should have taken place for this reason: The voters wanted it to.
Long Beach Press-Telegram, September 27, 2007
Attorney fees remain high Rosemead looking to trim spiraling costs
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD - City attorney fees remain high despite shifts in billing practices and the hiring of a new lawyer.
Bonifacio Garcia of Garcia, Calderon and Ruiz was hired in April to represent Rosemead and its redevelopment agency. In four months, he has charged the city nearly $137,000. This includes an invoice dated Sept. 3 for $37,286, and a $52,677 bill for work done in May.
Rosemead has budgeted legal fees at $265,000 for the 2007-08 fiscal year. If Garcia's billing trend continues, fees could cost the city as much as $500,000 dollars for one year, starting from the attorney's hiring date.
Garcia did not return phone calls for comment.
In part because of the high fees, the City Council decided to cap Garcia's monthly bill at $30,000, and as of Sept. 1, a new law firm was taking over duties for the redevelopment agency.
But city officials now can't seem to agree just where Garcia's responsibilities end.
City Manager Oliver Chi said Burke, Williams and Sorensen was hired last month, replacing Garcia, to represent the city on all land use, housing and redevelopment issues.
"The planning commission handles land-use related issues," Chi said.
But Garcia's firm has continued to provide legal advice at the planning commission meetings. His contract required that he attend all planning commission meetings. In a revised contract, effective Sept. 1, that was redacted.
Mayor John Tran and Councilman John Nunez said they intend for Garcia to remain as attorney of the planning commission.
"As far as I understand, he will continue to represent the planning commission," Nunez said. "The redevelopment agency is separate from the planning commission."
Joe Montes, an attorney from Burke, Williams and Sorensen, will soon be representing the city's planning commission meetings, Chi said.
Montes did not return calls.
"We are in the process of transferring all of the planning commission related items to Joe Montes," Chi said. "This should be done by the next planning commission meeting."
Councilwoman Margaret Clark said she thinks Garcia is milking the city's coffers.
"I would like Burke, Williams and Sorensen to take over all of the attorney representation for the city," Clark said. Now, "we would be paying double for some of the same research on the same issues."
A May billing statement shows that Garcia charged $7,478 for preparation and attendance of two planning commission meetings.
Clark believes that Garcia is being "nitpicky" with his legal fees.
"Where is all the money going?" Clark said.
Nunez attributes the fees to changes in City Hall.
"There's a lot going on in the city," Nunez said. "I think the costs are justified because he is doing a lot of work that is over and above in the last couple of months."
Pasadena Star News, September 22, 2007
Council shoots down motion
By Alison Hewitt, Staff Writer
WEST COVINA - An effort by City Councilman Roger Hernandez to cap the monthly amount that can be paid to the city attorney was defeated in a 4-1 vote by the council.
Hernandez argued that limiting what the city pays for its legal services would help maintain a balanced budget.
"I don't know one resident ... who wants us to have unlimited spending," he argued at Tuesday night's council meeting.
Hernandez contended that cities like Pasadena and El Monte pay less for legal services than West Covina.
City Attorney Arnold Alvarez-Glasman disagreed.
"In West Covina, our rates are actually the lowest that we charge our municipal clients," he said Wednesday, and said Pasadena does not pay less.
He interpreted Hernandez's actions as election-year posturing.
"It's political season," Alvarez-Glasman said, "and I guess I'm just the duck in the pond that he's shooting at."
Hernandez said West Covina pays City Attorney Arnold Alvarez-Glasman $600,000 to $1 million annually. Alvarez-Glasman contended his monthly bill averages $25,000 to $30,000, or up to $360,000 annually.
Billing records obtained by this newspaper for the first quarter of 2007 indicate Alvarez-Glasman & Colvin invoiced West Covina
$50,352.85 in January; in February $60,420.62; in March $69,883.52. Upon reviewing older invoices, Alvarez-Glasman said he billed the city $607,643 total in 2005.
Hernandez and Alvarez-Glasman have tangled before. Hernandez has previously asked the council to consider other attorneys, and was rebuffed in a separate effort Tuesday night to get the council to reconsider Alvarez-Glasman's contract.
A city-commissioned investigation also reported in December that Hernandez verbally abused city employees, and Alvarez-
Glasman said he was one of the victims. Hernandez denied the accusations.
Hernandez's council colleagues were also skeptical of his proposal.
Mayor Michael Touhey said limiting legal expenses would encourage people with lawsuits to simply wait until the city ran out of money.
"We don't have the ability to cap our exposure to lawsuits," he said.
Councilwoman Sherri Lane agreed, saying she didn't want to "tie the hands" of city staff. Councilwoman Shelley Sanderson said it would be micromanaging, and questioned Hernandez's motives.
"It feels like there's just some animosity with regards to the legal services," Sanderson said.
Councilman Steve Herfert questioned why Hernandez hadn't brought the issue up during budget discussions, instead of in the run-up to a November election in which Hernandez and Herfert are running for re-election.
"It looks to us like there's a personal vendetta against the city attorney," Herfert said. "It almost looks like a political hit job."
Hernandez denied the accusation, and said he had been inspired in part by the city of Rosemead. Rosemead put a $30,000 monthly limit on its legal costs this month, after receiving a $55,000 May bill from its city attorney.
Hernandez also noted that other cities were uncomfortable with Alvarez-Glasman, including Rosemead, where the City Council had considered hiring the attorney.
Some Rosemead council members called Alvarez-Glasman too political, and said they decided against him after learning of his brief flirtation with running for city treasurer in Montebello and his $1,000 donations to two of Rosemead's council members made them uncomfortable.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, September 21, 2007
U.S., Walnut reach settlement deal in voting rights lawsuit The accord calls for all city election materials and notices to be provided in five languages
By Tami Abdollah, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
When Walnut city officials were asked before their local election in 2006 whether federal observers could watch the process, the locals said they happily agreed to the chance to receive positive feedback.
"We were a little disappointed that our positive feedback was in the way of a lawsuit," said City Manager Rob Wishner.
A suit filed in April by the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division alleged that the city had violated sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by not translating election materials into Chinese and Korean and by failing to provide other assistance to voters of those ethnicities with limited English skills. On Thursday, the federal government and the city reached an agreement to settle the case. The accord calls for all city election materials and notices to be provided in English, Tagalog, Spanish, Korean and Chinese. Federal observers also will monitor the next two elections, Wishner said.
In a statement, Rena J. Comisac, acting assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, called the agreement a "remedial plan."
City Atty. Michael Montgomery said the settlement agreement did not find fault in any previous election or demonstrate that anyone had been prevented from voting. Walnut officials said that the city has provided ballots translated into Chinese since 1992 and that the 2006 election, monitored by the federal government, had a ballot printed in all five languages. The Voting Rights Act requires that after the population of voting-age citizens in a single language group reaches a certain threshold in a jurisdiction, specific steps must be taken. For example, all election materials -- including forms, notices and instructions -- provided in English must also be furnished in the relevant languages.
According to the 2000 census, 28.6% of the nearly 22,000 people of voting age in the city were of Chinese descent and 6.3% were of Korean descent. Of these, 65.3% of the Chinese group and 62.3% of the Korean group had limited English skills.
The settlement agreement still requires approval from a panel of three judges and ratification by the City Council. "It's a good tool for moving forward," Wishner said. "It will also serve, hopefully, as a model for other communities in the region, state and other areas of the country with similar diversity."
Los Angeles Times, September 21, 2007
Lynwood Residents Accuse Willoughby of Malpractice and Misrepresentation
by Yussuf Simmonds
Attorney Willoughby's appointment as the city attorney adds fuel to the recall
The residents of the city of Lynwood are up in arms over the recent appointment of tainted attorney Anthony Willoughby as their city attorney after they found out that he was publicly reproved for ethics violations by the California State Bar and required to re-take the State Bar ethic exam. The mayor and the city council members are in the throes of a recall and Willoughby’s appointment appears to be aggravating the situation. Information about his past ethics violations has been circulated throughout that community and the residents are poised to challenge the city council-members at the next council meeting over Willoughby’s appointment. Dr. Hanan Islam, a resident of Lynwood and a member of the Concerned Citizens of Lynwood Alliance (CCLA), sent a three-page letter addressed to the City Council Members, with copies to the city attorney, the assistant city attorney and the city manager outlining the citizens’ concern about Willoughby’s ethical violations.
ImageShe also stated, “I was very upset about Mr. Willoughby’s performance in representing the city during a recent recall hearing in court. There were two court dates and he basically did not show up therefore, the city council was not represented. And I would definitely be at the next council meeting to present my concerns.”
The CCLA is a group formed by the citizens of Lynwood and they have circulated the above-mentioned letter to the city residents. The letter dated August 28, 2007, stated, “We, the Concerned Citizens of Lynwood Alliance, are appalled at the performance of the Lynwood city attorney’s office and feel it is our civic duty to communicate this to our council in hopes it may assist you to make vital decisions regarding the legal representation you have chose. Our council is receiving inadequate legal counsel and representation and frankly we believe it borders on, if not is, malpractice.”
It appears that Willoughby was supposed to represent the city council at an Order to Show Cause Preliminary Injunction hearing aimed at stopping the recall, and according to the letter, he was not properly prepared. “This was the most embarrassing and damning performance by an attorney I have ever witnessed,” said Dr. Islam, who was present in court.
The letter continued, “...the judge noted that the documents filed by Atty. Willoughby were inadequate, having no useable data in them and she was unable to utilize them in making any decision on behalf of the council.” The judge therefore had no choice but to allow the proponents of the recall to move ahead. The letter explained that there seemed to be a question regarding some of the signatures that were gathered for the recall to proceed and the city council members were challenging the validity of the signatures and the recall. And that is the matter, which Willoughby was expected to present to the court on behalf of the Lynwood city council and indirectly the CCLA, who are also not in favor of the recall.
The CCLA believed that the information Willoughby presented in court was inadequate and unprofessional. The letter further stated, “Who are these attorneys (really) working for? It appears to us that there is intentional misrepresentation going on. We just don’t believe educated professionals can be this incompetent without intending to be so. The success we could have had with having these fraudulent signatures overturned has been thwarted by Anthony Willoughby and Associates, and we want our (city) council to know it and to now look closely at how they are being represented.”
As a result of Willoughby’s inadequate legal representation, the recall process will proceed, and the mayor and city council must now defend the recall rather than doing the business that they were elected to do. Council-member Rev. Alfreddie Johnson believed that his service as an elected official on behalf of the residents of Lynwood would thwart the recall. He said, “After the recall election is over, we are going to investigate the appointment of the city attorney. It is the responsible thing to do; it’s good for the citizens of Lynwood and for the city council.”
Council-member Leticia Vasquez, when asked to comment on the Willoughby appointment stated, “I don’t recall having any discussion about it because we have a recall going on and we have other pressing issues to address with the city.” After she was told about Willoughby’s public reproval and ethics violations she refused to return calls. She became very evasive and seemed to be trying to shield Willoughby’s record from exposure even though it already is a part of the public domain.
Calls to the mayor and the other city council-members were not returned.
When asked if the circumstances surrounding Willoughby’s appointment may be adding fuel to the recall, the president of CCLA, Lorna Hawkins said, “I think it does add fuel, of course it does because it’s a question mark about his ethics violatons. But I’m sure that’s going to be taken care of after the election. We, as the concerned citizens of Lynwood, will have to look into that and make sure that we get the proper representation for this city. This recall has been a real pain for the citizens who live here; this is the third recall attempt in two years.” As far as the city attorney’s performance, Hawkins further stated, “We are not satisfied with the things that he has done and the allegations that were brought against him about his past history. That’s very important to us. We want a city attorney that we can trust and one that we can come to and know that what he is saying is law, and that he actually knows what he is saying and he has the experience because he’s being paid a lot of money.”
Yvonne Wood, a resident of Lynwood, expressed her outrage at what she believed was conduct unbecoming of the mayor and the city council, “There’s a recall going on and when I read about the city attorney I was shocked. So what I’m trying to do is put the word out; I’m going to xerox these papers and I’ve already talked to people in the neighborhood. I am also getting ready to give these papers to the secretary to the principal of Lynwood High School to circulate to the employees who are also residents of Lynwood.” When asked about the lack of due diligence in checking out Willoughby’s past prior to his appointment, she continued, “I think they should investigate his past.
Willoughby was publicly reproved by the California State Bar for using money from his clients’ trust account for his personal expenses. And according to public records in another one of his cases—Lightfoot vs James Construction Company—he failed to competently perform the services for which he was employed and because of that the Lightfoots’ case was dismissed, and Willoughby paid them $8,000.00 by way of a settlement.
This reporter called Willoughby’s office seeking his comments. By press time, there had been no response.
Los Angeles Sentinel, September 20, 2007
Blog's pay stub post protected?
Expert says city employee information is public record
By Will Bigham, Staff Writer
CLAREMONT - When the Claremont Insider blog acquired and then published copies of city employee pay stubs last week, City Hall cried foul. Obtain Public Information: Freedom Friday
City Attorney Sonia Carvalho said the pay stubs contained private, personal information such as references to survivor benefits, use of vacation and sick time, and information on life-insurance benefits.
"Details as to how that employee directs his or her money - be it to a retirement plan, or to a union for dues, or for reimbursement for a holiday party - should not be released to the public for inspection and discussion," Carvalho said.
But according to public-records experts who considered, item by item, the information included on city pay stubs, the documents are a public record that the city would be required to release upon request - with fewer redactions than Carvalho indicates should be made.
The pay stubs include a "grouping of little factoids about various little entitlements that (employees) have from the city, which says nothing about them as human beings or as city employees," said Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware.
"And this is something that public agencies have trouble understanding or grasping, and the city attorneys usually aren't very helpful about educating them about it."
Information that could be redacted from an employee pay stub includes Social Security numbers, dates of birth and home addresses, said Peter Sheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition.
None of that information was included on City Manager Jeff Parker's pay stub, the first to be posted by the blog.
However, most of the 283 pay stubs mailed by the Insider to the Daily Bulletin include check numbers, routing numbers for city bank accounts - all of the information normally found on the bottom of a check.
That information may also be withheld from a public-records release, Scheer said.
Before a state Supreme Court decision in August clarified the law, public agencies released only salary and benefit information by name for top-level administrators.
For lower-level employees, only job titles were used.
"But about two weeks ago, the California Supreme Court said that salary and compensation information about all government employees, by name, is public information," Scheer said. "And the public can get it by requesting it.
"If pay stubs simply reflect all of an employee's compensation, without showing confidential information, then those pay stubs are exactly what the Supreme Court was talking about, and they must be disclosed."
In Parker's pay stub, for the pay period ending Dec. 17, itemized earnings, benefits, leave earnings and deductions are listed and quantified by dollar amount.
For example, the document says $43.45 was deducted for a dental plan, but it does not list any specific dental ailments or work that Parker may have had done.
Because specific information on employees' medical conditions is withheld, the public disclosure would be required, Francke said.
"I don't know what the city is referring to with reference to medical information," Francke said. "Because I've never heard of a pay stub that includes any medical information."
"So the question it comes down to is: What's the big deal?" Francke added. "It's not information that can be exploited by anyone to blackmail, coerce or harm another individual."
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, September 14, 2007
Claremont considers legal action in pay-stub leak
By Will Bigham, Staff Writer
CLAREMONT - The City Council met in a closed session Tuesday evening to consider legal action related to the posting of city employee pay stubs by a local blog last week.
City Attorney Sonia Carvalho refused to say against whom the council was considering litigation. The council did not come to a conclusion about whether to pursue legal action.
"We have reason to believe that the city of Claremont needs to protect its internal information system, and that's what the closed session was about - whether we need to pursue legal action or not," Carvalho said.
On Tuesday, a package arrived at the Daily Bulletin newsroom that included a CD-ROM with scans of 283 city employee pay stubs.
The package included a return address of "Claremont Buzz" - a handle used by the anonymous lead author of the Claremont Insider blog - and a note that said: "In case we go to jail."
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, September 13, 2007
Council accused of Brown Act violation The city attorney's office denies any wrongdoing
By Angela Potter, Staff Writer
Four of the five members of the Dana Point City Council have signed a statement opposing the effort to recall Mayor Diane Harkey.
Recall proponents responded immediately by sending a letter to City Attorney Patrick Mu�oz accusing the council members of violating the state's open meeting law. The statement is worded as a resolution, but isn't on any official letterhead.
The city attorney's office has countered with a letter which said the City Council has done nothing wrong and the resolution was simply an expression of personal political beliefs. The city attorney's office says signing the resolution didn't constitute an official city action.
Mayor Diane Harkey and City Council members Lisa Bartlett, Joel Bishop and Steven Weinberg signed a resolution dated Sept. 4 which says the accusations against Harkey are "not well founded" and that the recall detracts from city business.
Councilwoman Lara Anderson did not sign.
No one denies that the City Council members are entitled to their own opinions about the recall. But Jim Lacy, former City Councilman and recall proponent, said the document was meant to establish that the recall did not have City Council support and was a clear case of a Brown Act violation.
"There's no question about it," he said. "It's not even close. Their intention was to promote this as a collective decision of the City Council to establish that the City Council had collectively decided to oppose the recall."
The document has only five lines for signatures and was not signed by any members of the public, which Lacy said was further evidence that the resolution was meant to be seen as an official city action.
But in his written response to Lacy's letter accusing the council of a Brown Act violation, John Ramirez, who works in the city attorney's office, pointed out that, "Nowhere on the document is there any indication that it is, or purports to be, an official City document."
"The city simply had nothing to do with the creation of the alleged document," Ramirez wrote. "Indeed, the only support for your position is that the document was signed by members of the City Council and is dubbed a 'resolution.' � Furthermore, it goes without saying that simply because a document is entitled 'resolution' does not make it an official city resolution."
Terry Francke is the general counsel with Californians Aware, an organization that promotes open government and free speech. He said that, in his opinion, the resolution was likely a violation of the Brown Act, a state law that requires public agencies to post agendas and meet publicly, unless a topic is exempt.
However, Francke also acknowledged the argument that the document could be seen as nothing more than a statement of personal political beliefs.
One point of concern, Francke said, is that the document is dated Sept. 4 � the same day as a City Council meeting, further blurring the line between official and non-official city action. The council did not discuss or debate the recall issue during that meeting, and there was nothing on the agenda pertaining to the recall.
"I'm afraid using the word resolution and releasing this document after a council meeting really does blur that distinction and leaves them open to severe criticism at least," he said.
It would have been better, Francke said, for the City Council to debate the issue during an open and properly noticed City Council meeting with a public vote on the issue.
"Nothing prevented them from doing this publicly," he said. "Obviously any one of them or all four individually could have said, 'I think this recall stinks.' When they do so collectively, and when they do so in a joint expression called a resolution, it seems to me close enough to an official expression they had better discuss and debate that resolution at a property noticed and open meeting."
But in his letter responding to Lacy's claim, Ramirez said it would not be appropriate to politick from the dias.
"The issue addressed in the challenged document is the political stance of individual members of the City Council regarding the effort to recall Mayor Harkey," Ramirez wrote. "Neither a city nor a City Council has authority to engage in partisan politics. Such partisan political actions are quintessentially outside the subject matter jurisdiction of the City or City Council."
Orange County Register, September 12, 2007
City disables access to online archive
By Will Bigham, Staff Writer
CLAREMONT - City officials Tuesday disabled public access to City Hall's online document archive, citing concerns that it may have been the source of city employee pay stubs that were posted by the Claremont Insider blog.
On Monday night, Google, which hosts the blog, removed the post that included the pay stubs. The blog later re-posted the item without including the scanned pay stubs.
"Bottom line is, if we have a problem with our system that would allow for information that shouldn't be public to be public, we need to identify if there is a problem with our system," said City Manager Jeff Parker. "So until that is solved and identified, we're going to take that action."
City officials continue to investigate how the pay stubs were released. They remain unwilling to confirm claims made by the lead author of the blog that the pay stubs were accessed through a legal search of the city's public document archive.
On Friday, the Claremont Insider posted a copy of Parker's pay stub, along with the salaries and benefits of 31 staff members identified by name.
The blog later posted the pay stub of Jeff Porter, director of human services, and the salaries and benefits of five additional staff members.
The Claremont Insider has said in blog posts that it typed something along the lines of "Jeff Parker salary" into the search function of the archive, yielding several years' worth of pay stubs.
But attempts by the city to duplicate the search yielded no pay stubs, said Mayor Peter Yao, fueling concerns that the documents may have been obtained by other means.
City Attorney Sonia Carvalho first contacted Google on Friday to request that the post be removed because, the city claims, the pay stubs contain private information about employees that should not be available to the public.
In an interview Tuesday, Carvalho would not elaborate on her communication with Google and refused to release the city's e-mail correspondence with the company, citing attorney-client privilege.
Carvalho said the city was withholding the e-mail correspondence because city litigation against Google remains a possibility if the company fails in the future to respond if the blog re-posts copies of the pay stubs.
In an e-mail response on Tuesday to the Daily Bulletin, Google spokeswoman Wendy Rozeluk said: "Blogger prohibits certain kinds of content from being hosted on its servers."
"When we are notified of the existence of content that violates our terms of service," Rozeluk added, "we act quickly to review it and determine whether it violates these policies. If we determine that it does, we remove it immediately."
According to e-mails forwarded to the Daily Bulletin from the e-mail address listed on the Claremont Insider blog, Google removed the post because the city documents were copyrighted.
The authenticity of the correspondence could not be confirmed by Google because the Internet company did not respond to interview requests on Tuesday.
"We have removed your post due to the images of the paycheck stub of the city of Claremont, which in actuality is their copyrighted material," the e-mail from Google said. "If you would like to reload the post that we removed, feel free to do so as long as you leave out the images of the paycheck."
Parker and Carvalho refused to discuss whether the city argued in its correspondence with Google that the city pay stubs were copyrighted documents.
According to one open-government expert, the documents are not copyrighted.
"It doesn't make any sense," said Terry Francke, general counsel of Californians Aware. "First of all, I doubt that it's a fact that the city copyrights the pay stubs. I don't know why it would.
"And secondly, it's not clear to me that the display of the pay stubs would violate the copyright act anyway. It's simply displaying an image of them, it's not making a copy of them."
Francke added that if the documents are indeed copyrighted, the posting by the blog of the pay stubs would qualify as a "fair use" - meaning it would pass legal muster - because there is no market value lost by the publication.
"And what possible market value does the city have in the images of its pay stubs?" Francke added.
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, September 12, 2007
Conflict of interest in school deal?
By Jennifer Mclain
ROSEMEAD — A deal that appears to benefit the community, Garvey School District and East Los Angeles College also raises questions about the involvement of the mayor and city attorney.
The city on Tuesday granted permission to the Garvey School District to use Dan T. Williams Elementary School as a satellite campus for ELAC.
The deal came after years of negotiating, said Garvey school board member Bob Bruesch.
It will help Garvey supplement a $512,000 budget shortfall and satisfies ELAC's demand for more classes.
But questions surfaced over the city's and school district's legal representation as well as to a possible $20,000 that Rosemead Mayor John Tran will make from the agreement.
Tran, who served on the Garvey School Board until he left in 2005 to take a seat on the City Council, is a Realtor and served as negotiator between Garvey and ELAC.
"There is nothing wrong with a former trustee acting as a negotiator," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a watchdog group. "But an attorney can't represent two clients on the same issue. He would have to disqualify himself."
City Attorney Bonifacio Garcia's firm, which represents the Garvey School District, was expected to provide legal counsel for the city's planning commission meeting. But shortly before the meeting, City Manager Oliver Chi said he called another attorney to represent the city on that particular issue. Garcia's firm dealt with the rest of the agenda.
Joe Montes of Burke, Williams and Sorensen was hired last month to take Garcia's place as the city's redevelopment agency lawyer and to be the counsel to the planning commission. However, Montes was not scheduled to start his new position for another two weeks, Chi said.
The potential for conflict of interest could have been there, interim Redevelopment Director Brian Saeki said, but it was avoided by having Montes serve as counsel instead of Garcia's firm.
George Yin, the attorney from Garcia, Calderon and Ruiz, recused himself from the agenda item.
"George Yin made a statement that he has never worked on the project and never provided any opinions on the subject to the (city)staff," Saeki said. "But he did recuse himself, and Joe Montes stepped in and oversaw the proceedings."
Bruesch said the only thing Garcia's firm has done for Garvey in the land deal is, "helping us with dotting all of our 'I's' and crossing all our our 'T's'."
When Garcia was hired in April, council members questioned whether it was a conflict of interest for him to serve as counsel to Garvey School District and the city.
The day that Garcia was hired, Councilwoman Polly Low asked him: "Is there a conflict of interest for you to represent the city of Rosemead as well as the Garvey School District?"
Garcia said there wasn't, and in the event that there was an overlapping issue, "we would step back and .... advise that you bring other counsel to handle your relationship with the school district."
Residents also raised conflict-of-interest questions about the mayor's connection to the lease deal.
Steven Ly, president of a community group, Rosemead Partners, said that he sent out a letter to several hundred neighbors informing them of the possible change in use to Williams School. He also noted Tran's involvement.
"We view what is going on as a conflict of interest," Ly said. "(Tran) will be profiting a large commission."
Tran, who will receive up to 4 percent of the $500,000 deal, said that he has been upfront with staff and council members.
"This is another erroneous attempt to mislead and deceive the public once again," Tran said of Rosemead Partners, formerly known as Rosemead Guardians. "The Rosemead Guardians should be ashamed of themselves."
He also said that he plans on recusing himself from the council meeting if this comes.
Stern said as long as Tran doesn't participate in the vote and doesn't tell his colleagues how to vote, he is within the law.
"I told everybody not to mention ELAC in front of me," Tran said. "If it gets approved, I will recuse myself."
Though the mayor said the district contacted him, Bruesch said that Tran approached the district.
"He is a Realtor, and before he went into politics, that is what he did," Bruesch said. "When he said he would negotiate the lease for us it seemed logical because he knew both parties and could work through the issues."
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, September 9, 2007
City looks into leak of pay stub
By Will Bigham, Staff Writer
CLAREMONT - The posting on a local blog Friday of a scanned copy of City Manager Jeff Parker's pay stub left city officials scrambling to determine how the document was leaked.
The pay stub contains private information that the city would not be required to release upon request, said City Attorney Sonia Carvalho, putting the city in a position to be sued by any staff member whose privacy was compromised.
Parker said late Friday that he plans to investigate how the information was leaked and said he had contacted Police Chief Paul Cooper about the possibility that the document had been stolen.
Carvalho said Friday afternoon that she had contacted the legal department at Google, which hosts the Claremont Insider blog, to request that the private information in the post be removed.
At 6 p.m. Friday, the post remained online and unchanged. The post also contains information on the salaries and benefits awarded last year to 31 city staff members who are identified by name.
"It is my opinion, and also the city attorney's opinion, that it violates privacy issues with my employees," Parker said.
"I'm not happy because I don't think it's information that should be on any kind of Web site, or a blog in this case," he added.
The writers of the Claremont Insider blog are anonymous. The blog has been posting consistently since February, often taking aim at city leaders it refers to as the "Claremont 400."
City officials said Friday that there had been no public-records request or release related to the information on the blog, meaning that either the information was leaked by a staff member, or the city's computer system was hacked by an outside party.
"We're disappointed that the information got leaked out," said Mayor Peter Yao. "The city clearly has a responsibility to protect that data, and we didn't do a very good job."
The blog post included an explanation for its acquisition of the information that appeared to be satirical.
"However it got into the hands of the blog, there was a theft involved, and that concerns me greatly," Parker said. "I'm going to look into starting an investigation into the potential theft of that information."
Parker would not comment when asked whether he would consider legal action against the city if it's determined that a city staff member was the source of the leak.
He would also not comment on whether he was considering taking legal action against the blog.
The lead author of the blog did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment late Friday.
