Alarcon Diverts Public $$ to Friends Via 501(c)3 ... Again

UPDATE

A couple of points of information:

1. Ms. De la Torre and Ms. Chavez have contacted Mayor Sam and stated that Ms. Chavez no longer works for Padres Contra El Cancer. Ms. De la Torre insists she no longer has any communication with the former program director. Ms. Chavez also stated that though she worked with Ms. De la Torre in the past, she has no contact or relationship with her.

2. Here are links to specific document(s) referenced and not already linked in this article...

http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/270/270126980/270126980_200712_990.pdf (Youth Speak Collective 990 from FY 2007, see page 5)

Note that charities, especially 501(c)3s, are public entities and their tax records are public documents... a matter of public record.

http://mayorsam2.blogspot.com/2009/02/health-research-and-education.html (undated document showing at bottom of page Ms. Chavez's business affiliation and contact information as Program Director at Padres Contra El Cancer, another 501(c)3. Since we first posted this, the original page was taken down by the source so we have an HTML version on MS2. We do have a .PDF of the original on hand at Mayor Sam HQ.)
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Deja vu. Councilman Richard AlarCON has been caught diverting public funds to his political friends and lovers yet again. Slipping a motion quietly through Council without any substantial public or neighborhood council input, $100,000 of the Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Fund has been diverted yet again by the slick councilman from CD 7 and seconded by his political lovechild, Tony Cardenas.

Who is the receipient of the Godfather's generosity with public funds this time? Why, it's a 501(c)3 run by a protege of Maribel de la Torre. De la Torre is the sister of Cindy Montanez, a former Mayor and current San Fernando City Councilmember.

The project ostensibly slated to receive the landfill mitigation funds is a community garden at Roger Jessup Park, an unstaffed community pocket park near Whiteman airport. According to Federal tax documents (Form 990) for 2007, Youth Speak Collective, the charity responsible for the project in question, was formed just four years ago and lists Michelle Chavez as the President/Chairman of the Board as well as just $200,000 in assets.

Chavez is/was also the Program Director at another 501(c)3, Padres Contra El Cancer, where, coincidentally, Maribel de la Torre is or has been the Director of Development for the same organization. The address listed for Chavez in Youth Speak Collective's tax documents (again, Form 990 for 2007) is the exact same address given by Padres Contra El Cancer as their business address.

It's common knowledge that Alarcon, a political "life-er", jumped on the opportunity to cut a deal with Cindy Montanez to withdraw from the race for the CD 7 seat vacated by Alex Padilla when Padilla went up to Sacramento.

There are three or four funds associated with the closed landfill in the northeast San Fernando Valley, all of which receive incoming monies from sales of methane which is a byproduct of the decades of decomposing City garbage underground. The Lopez Canyon Landfill Community Amenities Fund is supposed to benefit the people who have been highly impacted by the landfill. This area includes the parts of Lake View Terrace and Pacoima nearest Lopez Canyon, and most of unincorporated Kagel Canyon. Kagel has borne the majority of the landfill's impacts while receiving effectively none of the millions that have passed through the funds since Ernani Bernardi introduced the original motion with the best of intentions in the early 1990s.

Sadly, the history of abuse and outright theft of Lopez Canyon community funds seems to be endemic to District Seven Council Office. Previous CD 7 representative Alex Padilla at one point transferred all of the money from the main active account into his personal discretionary account for undisclosed uses.

When questioned last year as to why Alarcon was taking $100,000 from another of the landfill community funds (the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund) and using it to build a truck driving academy on the landfill property now slated to be a City park, Alarcon simply dissolved the Environmental Awareness Center fund and moved the money into the Community Amenities Fund where the motion states that the funds are to be spent at the discretion of the councilman.

So at this point in time, the Community Amenities Fund has for all intents and purposes gone from a community mitigation fund to a second discretionary fund for Alarcon, leaving the people impacted most by the landfill once again without a true democratic voice in how the funds are spent. Meanwhile, Alarcon's friends profit from the community's loss.

According to Alarcon aide (and coincidentally also his cousin) John de la Rosa, the Lopez Canyon fund is supposed to be used '...for the area north San Fernando Boulevard to Foothill Boulevard; east of Paxton Street to Osborne Street.' Completely contrary to Bernardi's original motion, De La Rosa's description of the impacted area tellingly leaves Kagel Canyon, the area most impacted by the landfill, out of the picture.

It seems nefarious behavior associated with this landfill runs in the family. De La Rosa was the manager of Lopez Canyon Landfill in the 1990s until he was allegedly forced to resign after being caught more than once significantly altering employee files without authorization.

...Oh the way Glenn Miller played.... songs that made the hit parade....

Alarcon circle-jerks Sayre fire victims, Sylmar NC for votes.

Under the convenient cover of fire relief efforts, Richard 'Zorro Marxist' Alarcon will preside over the first joint City council committee-neighborhood council meeting today at 3pm.

Sad as it is to say, the high-profile Sayre Fire has come at a very convenient time for the old Zorro Marxist. Guillermo Huesca, philanthropist and popular Spanish-language television personality, is also running for CD-7. Huesca may be the first CD-7 candidate in ages who has enough face recognition to knock Zorro off.

Today's landmark meeting is ostensibly about fire recovery services for the people of Sylmar. A parade of citizens who've lost everything -- people from Sylmar -- will be trotted out to fill the room with empathy, while first responders will be trotted out to fill the room with pride. All with Chairman Alarcon presiding. 'How deeply must Richard Alarcon care for his constituents!' we think upon reading this. 'Vote Alarcon!'

...but how quickly we've forgotten.

Alarcon and his political offspring (Padilla) have been in command of CD-7 for an awfully long time. Complaints of water pressure issues, shoddy and plain old illegal construction, and fire code violations at and around mobile home parks and regular single-family homes have been coming into his office for decades while the quality of life for CD-7 residents has gone steadily downhill. The current slum lord conditions in CD-7 have all come to pass on Alarcon's watch.

Alarcon's let them eat cake attitude goes far deeper than this. In the past five years, mercenary developers have been victimizing mobile home park residents all over the state through immoral and cruel practices in the quest for build-able land. These practices include hiking space rental fees beyond the price of an average single-family home mortgage and charging utilities fees that are factors of ten higher than the actual utility bill. When the resident can no longer pay the fees, they're often forced to completely abandon their mobile or pre-manufactured home. Many, if not all of these residents are lower income and/or the elderly.

Three mobile home parks were seriously damaged between the Marek and Sayre fires. At least two of these parks have been under siege by the practices described above in the past five years. One of them, Blue Star, had many homes damaged in the Marek fire. Blue Star land lies half in the County of Los Angeles, half in CD-7 where some measure of City rent control has actually mitigated the owner's attempts to bankrupt and drive out those residents.

Alex Padilla may be the only City councilman to both take notice of the plight of these victims and actually take action. When Padilla left CD-7 for Sacramento, he had already spent a year working to protect all of Blue Star's weary residents by annexing the rest of land into Los Angeles City. All Richard Alarcon had to do upon taking office for a third time was to complete a few technical steps and the annexation of Blue Star would be complete. Residents would finally be free of the ongoing nightmare.

Yet today, Blue Star remains split between City and County. When asked why the annexation wasn't finished, Alarcon's response was: "... the property owner was against it."

The property owner was against it? Go figure.

Although CD-7 is composed mainly of Sylmar and Pacoima residents, half of Lake View Terrace, approximately 10,000 people, reside in CD-7 too. However, when the Marek Fire hit Lake View Terrace just a few weeks earlier, the council office was basically MIA. Alarcon didn't even phone it in, bypassing the major emergency relief information meetings organized by the State and County to hold his own emergency relief meetings for a selected few without any real outreach or even bothering to contact the neighborhood council in that area.

The Sayre Fire impacted portions of Lake View Terrace a second time. Alarcon's outreach to the NC whose boundaries include Lake View Terrace was to send his cousin and field deputy, John de la Rosa, to turn on the crocodile tears for almost 10 minutes of nothing at their last board meeting. 'How deeply Alarcon's cousin must care for the people,' they're supposed to think. 'Vote Alarcon!'

Reality-check. Alarcon -- who is the president of the council committee which oversees neighborhood councils and who should be their biggest ally -- has been historically antagonistic with the neighborhood council in that particular area. De la Rosa was the deputy who accused the NC board of racism and of purposefully pitting 'neighborhood against neighborhood' when the board protested Alarcon's theft of funds from an environmental center to pay for his union-backed truck driving academy. The academy will pave over 22 acres of the Lopez Canyon Landfill that is slated to become open space and park land per the landfill's approved closure plan.


Ladies and gentlemen of the voting public: CD-7 Kool-aid is being served at 3pm today. It's unfortunate that the Sylmar Neighborhood Council and fire victims find themselves first in line to partake.

Alarcon Aide Issues 'Warning' to NC Board

Hot from the Whistleblower Hotline's Valley Bureau, more on the Misappropriation-Smishappropriation front.

Tonight the Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council had two items on their agenda directly related to Zorro Marxist’s council motion (08-0481) taking $100,000 from the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center fund to pay for truck driver training.

1. presentation by Alarcon aide John de la Rosa on the truck driver training program
2. community impact statement opposing 08-0481 'caus the Hansen Dam fund is not for this purpose (as already discussed here...)

First De la Rosa, who used to run Lopez Canyon Landfill when it was open by the way, gave his own version of the history of the Fund. The gollygeeamazing bits - De la Rosa saying that it did not matter what the City Administrative Code says about this fund. Alarcon could and will spend it any way Alarcon wants. He told the board to forget what the City Administrative Code says, end of story. ‘It’s (o8-0481) going to happen no matter what’. Also, Alarcon will be moving the money to a new fund of some kind.

Most scary! when FTDNC board were about to pass the CIS, De la Rosa in his best Sopranos voice - “(if you vote for the CIS) …you will be pitting community against community.”

De la Rosa was asked three times what he meant by this. He never responded, just weird quiet laughter was emitted by Alarcon's rep. Spooky!

Even spookier! His Zorro'ness is the chairman of the City Council Education and Neighborhoods committee which advocates for neighborhood councils at the City Council level.


Heard from a person in attendance: “...it’s really creepy -- this notion that he created this fund in the ‘90s, goes away on to two different jobs, and comes back (treating this fund) like its his money that he buried in the back yard and is digging up or something."


What do you think De la Rosa means by "you will be pitting community against community"? Ah hah! Now we know where the bodies are buried!


Next: Zorro makes the NC board an offer they can't refuse.

Misappropriation, Smishappropriation.

I've heard of Clean Diesel, but really -- this is a bit much.

In the February 29th Council Referral File, listed was what appeared to be a fairly mundane little motion -- (#08-0481) by Richard 'Houdini' Alarcon and seconded by Cardenas that instructs...

"...the Board of Public Works, with the assistance of the CLA, to appropriate and provide $100,000.00 from the Hansen Dam Environmental Center Awareness Fund (sic), to the Training Opportunity Program for the purposes of training participants from District Seven, who shall constitute an additional 25% of the program’s enrollees; and related matters...."

Hmm. Seems innocent enough. But if you look at the full text of the motion, the 'Training Opportunity Program' in question is actually the new Union-backed Truck Driver Training Program which is held at the Lopez Canyon Landfill. Yup -- Alarcon is paying to train new truckers at a closed City landfill with money taken from the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund. That's quite a trick, making a program that puts more truckers on the road equivalent to environmental awareness. Houdini would be proud.

The Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund has a complex history, and it's this history that both Alarcon and his equally-adept-at-pre$tidigitation CD7 'predecessor/successor' (you can thank Prop R for this), Alex Padilla, have excelled at using to generate the smoke and mirrors that confuse the very community which is supposed to benefit from the funds. To summarize the history, Lopez Canyon semi-mitigation money begat the Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Fund benefiting the community impacted by the landfill, which, through the will of the impacted community, begat the Hansen Dam Envronmental Awareness Center Fund which begat the Lake View Terrace Library, and is supposed to beget an environmental awareness center in Hansen Dam Recreational Area, where, it just so happens, there is a recently-designated wildlife lake and sensitive wildlife area and a host of relevant community partnerships just waiting for some funding to create a beautiful, vital environmental experience for the citizens -- and the wildlife -- of this City.

The actual history of this money is full of political intrigue, misappropriation, subterfuge, and general overall screwing-of-the-people, so if you would enjoy reading it, please see below. Regardless of history and regardless of the merits (or possible un-merits) of the truck driver training program, if Council File 08-0481 passes, $100,000 from the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund will be successfully misappropriated by the Councilmember to pay for more truck drivers on our freeways. Environmental awareness, CD 7-style.

This is plain old wrong -- call me an idealist but the ends, good or bad, do not justify the means.


Additional:

It is worth noting that the only vetting of the Lopez Canyon truck driver training program on the community that its proximity directly impacts was a simple FYI session held as part of the Lopez Canyon Landfill Closure community meeting process -- well after CD 7 declared it a done deal in the media.

Also worth noting is that the neighborhood council inside whose boundaries Lopez Canyon and the truck driver training program resides has had no input in the process -- a process controlled by CD 7's Richard Alarcon, who just happens to be the chairman of the Los Angeles City Council's Education and Neighborhoods committee which oversees and advocates for neighborhood councils at the City Council level. That's irony for ya.
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Here as promised is the history of the HDEAC Fund: (get ready to be confused)

A long long time ago in a far far away corner of the Valley, Lopez Canyon Landfill was open and accepting the fetid garbage of millions of Los Angelenos. Its existence severely impacted a Community consisting of roughly half of Lake View Terrace, all of Kagel Canyon (in LA County), and a small part of Pacoima. Also negatively impacted because it is unlucky enough to be directly downwind/downslope of the landfill is Hansen Dam, then a "Flood Basin", now magically a "Recreational Area." (You're supposed to forget about the flood part.)

To mitigate this impact in different ways, two different official City funds were created in the City Administrative Code. One was the Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Fund. Predating neighborhood councils, this Fund was overseen by community members on a committee and administered by the CD 7 councilmember at the time (Alarcon, then Padilla). LVT and southeast Pacoima is relatively isolated, and the little impacted Community wanted a branch library for their children. They also felt that a just use of landfill mitigation money would be to create environmental awareness opportunities. Thus the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund was birthed from a chunk of the Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Fund. It, too, is an official City fund in the City Administrative Code.

One day around the peak time for the Y2K panic, without telling the little, impacted Community, Padilla suddenly closed the Amenities Fund and transferred all of the remaining money (hundreds of thousands of dollars) to his general discretionary fund to be used as he saw fit. It took the little, impacted Community, still without an NC, a number of years to figure out what really happened to the money and by the time they did, the money was long gone. Thus ended the Amenities Fund, although it still exists as an Administrative Code artifact. During the same period, an acre of the Rodney King "memorial corner" on Hansen Dam property was purchased with HDEAC Fund funds and dedicated to the LVT Branch Library -- a building that was at the time cutting edge in Los Angeles with its eco-friendly design. Without knowing of the cleaning out of the Amenities Fund and expecting a new, green library, the little, impacted Community was happy.

Ignorance is bliss, however. Without notice, the new, green library was severely downsized. Taking his vow to use his political wisdom over the wishes of his constituents very seriously, against the will of the little, impacted Community, for the hefty price of $1 US per year to be paid to the City, Padilla gave half of the library property to a private corporation to build their Los Angeles Children's Museum -- an institution designed to be a city-wide amenity, not a local amenity for the people living next to a landfill as was intended by the spirit of the fund. The private corporation could then charge the public a $8-$10 fee each to enter a facility on City property purchased with the little, impacted Community's own funds. On the side, and again unknown and unobserved by the little, impacted Community and a neighborhood council in the process of formation, Padilla up and gave $2 million of the Hansen Dam Environmental Awareness Center Fund to the same private corporation. Fortunately for the little, impacted Community, when it came time to pay up in 2006, things had changed. The Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council existed, Padilla had moved upstate, and a loose end -- a council referral file -- clued the little, impacted Community in to Padilla's previously unknown generous donation on their behalf. Alarcon, having triumphantly returned to his people for a third term, actually listened to the community impact statement filed by the FTDNC on behalf of its stakeholders that include much of the little, impacted Community, and returned the money to the HDEAC Fund.

Confusing, yes? YES. But does this justify Alarcon's motion? NO. A thousand times NO.