| Editorial: Councilman Escareño Reportedly Pays City Back $3,468 Raising Questions About Misuse of Public Funds and Unauthorized loans of Public Money October 21, 2004 By Editor, WatchOurCity.com Huntington Park, CA - After many months since WatchOurCity.com first reported about questionable city cell phone usage, on Monday October 18, 2004, councilman Edward Avila Escareño reportedly went to city hall to make a partial reimbursement payment on his outstanding debt with the city. Escareno’s payment raises serious questions about public fund misuse and unauthorized loans of public money, as well as questions of complicity, apathy or ineptitude on the part of other city officials. Public record evidence strongly suggests that Escareno virtually gave himself a loan from public funds by not reimbursing costs while his council colleagues and other city officials evidently did nothing about the matter. WatchOurCity.com first reported in March regarding Escareño's highly questionable and seemingly irresponsible use of public funds. He is up for reelection in March 2005. According to a representative in the city clerk’s office, Escareno paid the city back $3,468.89. The payment is partial reimbursement for highly questionable cell phone and long distance expenses that he has charged to public funds in the last 2 years. Council members are allotted a $6,000 travel budget. In two years in a row Escareno has spent the maximum combined travel amounting to $12,000, and in the same time period he somehow managed to spend an additional $13,000 more in questionable travel expenses. WatchOurCity.com posted a report in August asking for him to reimburse the city. WatchOurCity.com reported a few months ago that Escareno reportedly carries on a romantic relationship with a school teacher in Playas De Rosarito in Baja California, Mexico. Rosarito is an official Sister City of Huntington Park. Council members Mario Gomez, Ofelia Hernandez, John Noguez and Rick Loya have remained publicly silent and seemingly allowed the misappropriation of public funds to take place without demanding accountability from Escareno. It is becoming increasingly evident that the city seems to lack any controls to monitor such misuse of public funds. Was there a cover-up of Escareno’s actions due to political loyalty, complicity or simply leadership ineptitude or apathy? Was the private interest of the few protected at the expense of the public interest and public trust? Travel and cell phone expense records posted by WatchOurCity.com reveal that council members Mario Gomez, Ofelia Hernandez and city clerk Elba Romo have spent a combined total of $15,000 on travel in the last year alone (see travel records here). While these expenditures are not illegal, they do shed light on the priorities and set of values that council members place on the use of public funds and their regard for the public trust. Why have Gomez, Hernandez, Noguez and Loya remained silent for so long? Why did they vote and approve to allow Escareno continuous access to cell phones and long distance privileges knowing that he abused both. They continued voting and approving not only his phone use, but his questionable travel expenses as well. The thousands of dollars in question are not insignificant amounts. Escareno voted to approve his own use of public funds by approving the city’s warrant drafts. Others silent on Escareno’s apparent misuse of public funds were the city manager, the city finance director, the city attorney and the city treasurer. The city attorney was selected in close door session reportedly without public bids by councilman Escareno. The city attorney's contract was voted and approved by Escareno, Gomez and Hernandez with Loya casting a "No" vote. Escareno actively supported the campaign of three of his fellow council members who ran as a slate: Mario Gomez, Ofelia Hernandez and John Noguez. Escareno and the rest of city council review the city manager and finance director for job performance. City clerk Elba Romo was appointed by city council members except for Loya. Not once did Mayor John Noguez, city council members, city treasurer Rebecca Avila, city attorney Francisco Leal, city clerk Elba Romo, the city manager or finance director make any attempt to publicly speak out or take corrective action, even as the questionable expenses were made public in March 2004 by WatchOurCity.com. The only action authorized by city council (and executed by the city attorney) in reaction to WatchOurCity.com's exposure of public documents that raised serious questions regarding city council action was to send a letter to ex-councilwoman Linda Guevara. The letter, dated August 17, 2004, alleges that Mrs. Guevara was "obtaining city records evidently by illicit conspiratorial means" and threatening her with prosecution", reported the L.A. Times. In effect, the City was seemingly attempting to intimidate, harass and censure, or shut down, any public document gathering efforts that attempt to inform the public about city council's questionable actions. No official corrective action was taken regarding Escareno even after coverage in a Los Angeles times article on August 21, 2004, where specific mention was made regarding WatchOurCity.com asking Escareno to pay back his questionable expenses (see L.A. Times report). Councilman Escareno paid back the City some of his debt on the same day that councilman Loya introduced the topic of the questionable expenditures on the council meeting agenda of 10/18/04 for [“discussion and/or action regarding reimbursement and/or status of City Council Member expenses (i.e. cell phone, office phones, travel, etc.)”]. This was the first time the item was publicly mentioned by any city official since WatchOurCity.com first reported the questionable expenditure in March. This was the same day also that this website posted the latest cell phone expense records revealing that from September 2003 to September 2004 Escareno had spent a total of $5,008 on cell phone and long distance calling. Public records show that council members have allowed seemingly frivolous spending of public funds such as allowing themselves a $6,000 travel budget per year per member, voting and approving items that evidently benefit friends and campaign contributors such as giving $30,000 to the private business group Meta 2000; voting themselves a raise as community development commission members (Loya voted against the raise and elects not to be paid); awarding a transportation contract that cost the tax payers at least $22,000 more because the contractors, Oldtimers Foundation and Fiesta Taxi, are friends and campaign contributors (never mind that the contractors’ bid was not the lowest bid nor even the second lowest bid, according to comments the city manager made to the Wave Newspaper that referred to internal staff reports); and giving a $40,000 raise to the chief of police and salary raises to executive level city employees (while a hand-full of city employees were given lay-off notices and officials cited budgetary constraints as reason). Fees for legal services are seemingly allowed to reach approximately $1,000,000, according to the 2004-05 budget, without any alarm by city officials. It seems that the residents of the City are being victimized by council members who seem to exhibit little regard for the public trust or the public interest that they are entrusted to serve. The pattern of behavior by city council members places into question their ability to responsibly and ethically monitor and manage the City’s fiscal matters. Council members voted and approved to present “Measure L” to the City’s voters in November’s general elections to raise property taxes by an additional $750,000 (see report on Measure L by WatchOurCity.com). Properties with one single family home will not be taxed and in fact will see a $10 reduction in yearly taxes. However, the City’s other property owners will be made to pay for a seeming lack of competent fiscal leadership and lack of mature fiscal oversight. Mayor John Noguez was quoted in a local newspaper that recent layoffs of City employees were caused by the well known budget crisis. The crisis is in part caused by State and County action, but also partly due and directly related to council members’ inability to curb expenditures at every level and with every department. Mayor John Noguez has remained silent about the misuse of public funds by Escareno. He has proposed apparently misguided attempts to curtail City spending by proposing to cut City employees’ salaries. When that did not work, he also proposed to cut council salaries by 10% per year for 10 years. These attempts at cost cutting did not address his coleagues' penchant, and his own, for frivolous spending of public funds ($30,000 cash to celebrate "El Grito"; $3,000 for flowers for a Business Improvement District event; $11,000 for a January 6 "Dia De Los Santos Reyes" religious procession). The Mayor's public efforts at cost cutting become highly dubious at best in light of the fact that he votes to donate $50,000 in public funds to a private business group (later reduced to $30,000 due to questions raised as a result of exposure of the gift by WatchOurCity.com); Noguez approves giving $40,000 of public funds to a real estate developer that donated to his campaign committee. He also voted for the transportation contract that cost the city taxpayers $22,000 more than if awarded to the lowest responsible bidder. He voted against a $350 a month pay raise that Escareno, Gomez and Hernandez passed, but still elects to get paid the raise. He says he's interested in cost cutting, but his actions betray his words, according to public records. "Black and white was all they needed to print...they only take the bad", he was quoted in the L.A. Times criticizing this website. Mayor Noguez sent an email to WatchOurCity.com on March 22, 2004, barely seven days after the site was launched, and before the website posted any critical information on Noguez: "This is a surprising web site. But please not[e) that from my $6,000 Travel Allocation, I have given the office of the City Clerk $2,000 for need travel in that department. Also, I am have re-imburssed[sic] my cell phone bills for my personal calls. I don't know if that is the same for other Council Members. I encourage your efforts as it keeps us all in check and makes us know that our public is watching". Any email sent by any public official becomes public record. Noguez’s experience working with government was touted as reason to vote him into city council. Councilman Ric Loya sent a letter to the voters in January 2003 endorsing John Noguez for city council stating that he [Noguez] “knows how money is raised for cities – this type of thinking we need”. No one doubts that Mayor Noguez is an excellent and competent L.A. County Property Assessor. That experience apparently is not the same as competently knowing about responsible and ethical fiscal management of local government. Mayor Noguez’s work experience since graduating from college is assessing properties, which establishes a basis for taxing properties. He, along with his council colleagues, brings Measure L before the voters of this city on November to impose new taxes on the property owners of this city, but does little to curtail highly questionable public funds expenditures. When ex-council member Linda Guevara was convicted for allegedly lying about not living in the city, council member Escareno was quoted in a local newspaper reportedly stating that the city was now clean of corrupt officials: according to the District Attorney’s office, Mrs. Guevara was charged with allegedly lying about not living in the city, not misuse of public funds. For the record, Linda Guevara has provided some Public Record document assistance to WatchOurCity.com The District Attorney’s website states that city of Compton officials were convicted for misuse of public funds on February: “[Mayor] Bradley and the [two]others [city officials] each were convicted of the two counts against them – misappropriation of public funds and unauthorized loans of public money” (http://da.co.la.ca.us/mr/021004a.htm). The D.A. states: "This sends a clear and unmistakable message to those in public office: Don’t take the people’s money and don’t abuse the powers of your office," District Attorney Steve Cooley said in a prepared statement. "If you do, we will prosecute you as we continue to fight public corruption both big and small." |
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