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| September 24, 2010, 6:00 am Editor, WatchOurCity.com State Controller Chiang Issues Audit Report on Bell, Covers up missing contract to City Manager Pedro Carrillo totaling $110,000 John Chiang donated $1,200 to Carrillo's 2002 Assembly race. John Chiang hides in audit report the fact that Pedro Carrillo, before he was Bell's city manger had a lucrative relationship with Rizzo The Editor, Watchourcity.com Bell, CA - On Wednesday September 22, John Chiang, State Controller, issued the results of an audit focusing on specific areas triggered by Bell's massive corruption scandal and the city's fiduciary fail in managing administrative and internal accounting control systems. Controller Chiang's audit is a devastatingly damning report, implicating most of the gang of 8, including current city manager Pedro Carrillo. While John Chiang goes to great lengths in calling out the abuses, Chiang goes to equally great efforts in the Audit report to hide the role current city manager Pedro Carrillo had in receiving lucrative contracts under Rizzo, an item not mentioned in the executive summary. No less than twelve bullet points divided into two groups of "findings" outline "conditions that suggest possible intentional abuse and misuse of city funds", states John Chiang's official letter. The Audit highlights one egregious instance of abuse and misuse of funds involving the current city planner David Tarrango. Though Tarrango's contract had expired in 1996, Rizzo and Bell city council continued to pay Tarrango's private firm over $10,000,000 well into this decade. It didn't help matters for either party when the Times learned, and published, that Tarrango and Rizzo shared financial interest in race horses worth a few millions of dollars. It is illegal for a government body to pay on invoices without a contract backing up the claim. Mr. Chiang's office took great care to paint a picture of government run amok, uncontrolled. John Chiang also took great care to protect his friend, Pedro Carrillo, Bell's current city manager, appointed by the very city council members arrested on Tuesday by the District Attorney's office. Mr. Chiang's findings, as presented in the 3-page executive summary, makes no mention of the recently appointed Bell city manager Pedro Carrillo, nor of Carrillo's consultant firm Urban Associates. We learn of Carrillo's role in enriching himself from Bell's officially ill-gotten treasury, to the tune of $110,000, presumably with Robert Rizzo's approval, in an appendix sheet of the Controller's Report, in tiny little letters, treating the item like a footnote, almost like a passing thought, pretending as if unimportant, intending like it was nothing: The contracts folder which was supposed to contain copies of current city manager Pedro Carrillo's $110,000 contract was inexplicably empty. And State Controller Chiang buried the glaring oversight in page 17. WatchOurCity.com reported in August 24, 2010 that most of the Bell officials who were arrested on Tuesday by the District Attorney's office contributed a combined $7,500 to Pedro Carrillo's campaign for State Assembly in 2002, an amount that is more than the contributions from all other southeast cities combined. One other prominent campaign donor, a very good friend of Carrillo's, was a certain John Chiang, who, according to the Secretary of State's campaign filing records, gave $1,200 to Pedro Carrillo's campaign. Pedro Carrillo returned the favor by funding Chiang's campaign with all of $450. It is highly disturbing that the office of the State Controller would be used by John Chiang to protect Pedro Carrillo's role in also enriching himself under the Rizzo and George Cole regime. That one of the biggest red flags found by John Chiang, Pedro Carrillo's missing contracts for $110,000, gets buried in the report in an Appendix, taints and instantly invalidates the credibility of Chiang's report, and begs to ask the question: What else are both hiding? The missing contract is no small matter given that people are in jail for such shenanigans. In fact, this issue is material of highest importance to the public interest. Yet John Chiang's office manages some cheap sophistry in deceitfully downplaying the import and gravity of the situation in order to protect his personal friend Pedro Carrillo. Such deceit becomes more alarming in light of the media attention which has descended on Bell exposing "Corruption on Steroids" as District Attorney Cooley said, but given that State Controller John Chiang and Bell city manager Pedro Carrillo are friends from way back, from before they each exchanged campaign contributions in 2002. The Department of Justice has not called either on this fundamental flaw of Chiang's Audit report on Bell. Chiang's backhanded actions to use the force of his pubic office for private benefit of his friend Carrillo may just backfire and cost him dearly. Carrillo's AWOL contract is now front and center, not hidden in a footnote. And some questions need to be answered: was there even a contract to begin with? Tarrango didn't have one. That's how Rizzo played it. What's to say that Pedro Carrillo had one? Chiang's audit report materially skews the findings of the Audit Report on Bell's corruption. Instead of bringing transparency and clarity to the audit, John Chiang's State Controllers office becomes an agent of obfuscation, and aiding and abetting Pedro Carrillo's ties to Rizzo, and thus possible criminal acts. When adding Carrillo's missing contracts with Chiang's hiding the matter, it is reasonable to conclude that, indeed, something is not right with Carrillo's contract. And State Controller John Chiang presumubaly knows it, otherwise he would not have gone to extraordinary effort to hide the fact. Pedro Carrillo has been front and center since he first appeared on live news broadcasts defending Rizzo's $800,000 salary as the official city spokesman. It's one thing for Carrillo to have been awarded the city manager position by a city council now under arrest for felony charges, but entirely another when the office of the State Controller is used as a cover for Pedro Carrillo by his friend and campaign contributor John Chiang. The office of the State Controller has done Bell residents a disservice, and has discredited its findings with the gaping omission, and shows that Party politics trumps public benefit. Both are Democrats, intimately connected to the Democratic leadership based in Sacramento. The Senior Democrat in the State Senate, Ron Calderon, who represents the cauldron of corruption that are these southeast cities of L.A. County, has a brother, Tom, who is president of the Board of the George Cole's Oldtimers Foundation. George Cole is the former Bell councilman who was arrested on Tuesday along with the gang of 8, including Robert Rizzo, Angela Spaccia and the others. Compounding the questionable actions by State Controller Chiang in he matter of Carrillo's missing contract, is the total lack of due diligence in pursuing he matter further. Chiang is right there with Carrillo, yet does not follow up with Carrillo to request a copy of the missing document. John Chiang has the unique opportunity in dealing directly with both parties to the missing $110,000 contract, Pedro Carrillo city manager and Pedro Carrillo principal of Urban Associates. Pedro Carrillo, along with Tarrango, Rizzo, George Cole, Spaccia, Mayor Hernandez and the rest of the gang of 8, all benefited financially from public funds at the expense of Bell residents. John Chiang's hiding of Carrillo's lucrative and intimate involvement with Rizzo and gang is shameful and disturbing. Mario Rivas, a Bell resident and veteran of two tours of duty in the Middle East, confronted Pedro Carrillo during a Thursday evening community police watch meeting. Mr. Rivas asked Bell's city manager to explain why the $110,000 contract, awarded by Rizzo, was missing from the folder kept in the city's archives. City manager Carrillo's response, which was caught on tape, was as incredulous as his defense of Rizzo. He stated that "the missing contract is for a different Urban Associates company, not his "Urban Associates consulting firm." A quick check of state records reveals that there is only one Urban Associates, Inc., registered to a certain Pedro Carrillo. Robert Rizzo may have been greedy, but he wasn't stupid: why would Rizzo contract with two firms sharing the same name? In the end, this episode is but one more exhibit in a long list of exhibits to present at a future case against Pedro Carrillo. |
Bell City manager
Pedro Carrillo, greets
State Controller John
Chiang at Bell City Hall.
John Chiang donated
$1,200 to Pedro
Carrillo's campaign in
2002.
John Chiang's audit of
Bell hides the fact that
Pedro Carrillo made
$110,000 from the City
of Bell under Robert
Rizzo, and Carrillo's
contract goes missing.
Pedro Carrillo, greets
State Controller John
Chiang at Bell City Hall.
John Chiang donated
$1,200 to Pedro
Carrillo's campaign in
2002.
John Chiang's audit of
Bell hides the fact that
Pedro Carrillo made
$110,000 from the City
of Bell under Robert
Rizzo, and Carrillo's
contract goes missing.
| "Contracts for several vendors were missing or non-existent. For Fiscal Year (FY) 2008-09 and FY 2009-10, $841,766 and $110,000 were paid to D & J Engineering and to Urban & Associates, Inc. The contract agreement between the city and D & J Engineering expired in June 30, 1996. The folder file for Urban &Associates did not contain any contract agreement." |