A Bloggin Broadside on Sue Burnside's Past "Ethical Issues"

Sue Burnside, the newly anointed savior of the Wendy "The Villar Greuel" Ground Campaign, has her own past issues with potential "Waste, Fraud and Abuse" of ex clients.

 Political Consultant Sue Burnside (left) and Spouse.

** Blogger's Note: Great Saturday to all as the dust settles on the surprising campaign shake up within the Wendy "The Villar Greuel" for Mayor Campaign Team. With the announcement that longtime "Private Citizen/ Political Consultant" John Shallman, has chosen to team up again with noted Political Ground Campaign Consultant Sue Burnside, we could not help our bloggin selves in flashing back to previous Shallman/ Burnside Collaborations (think Torie Osborn, Brian Johnson, Chris "Mini Greuel" Essel and now Congresswoman Janice "Hahn-Weiss"). But being CD 14centric in most my musings, I cannot bloggin help making a "Cut and Paste Republic" connection to the shake up within "The Villar Greuel Campaign". Follow along as we flashback to the "Ben Austin/Robert Urteaga/Burnside Associates Signaturegate Scandal" (and lawsuit)---Scott Johnson.

Parent Revolution Executive Director and Parent Trigger Advocate Ben Austin.

One person who must be chuckling (and cringing) with the announcement of Burnside's hiring by the Villar Greuel Campaign, is Mayor Antonio Villar Education Reform ally Ben Austin. Austin would seem to be a given Villar Greuel supporter, considering that many within Mayor Villar's Education Machine (LAUSD School Board President Monica "Gorda Boo Boo" Garcia among those), have endorsed the third term, in waiting, incarnation of City Terrace Native's Political Machine. Yet, via a now litigious business arraignment involving Sue Burnside and former CD 14 City Councilman Nick Pacheco Campaign Manager Robert Urteaga, Ben Austin is not LAUSD School Board Member Ben Austin.   

Former CD 14 City Councilman Nick Pacheco Campaign Manager and Recalled Montebello (aka "CD 14 East") City Councilman Robert Urteaga.

The much-troubled former CD 14 and Montebello political figure Robert Urteaga, was once the ex CD 14 politico associate, who would would be "King of a mystical CD 14 East Fiefdom" in Montebello. Upon election to the City of Montebello City Council, he brought along his CD 14 associates Nick Pacheco and John Edwards and installed them in respective city positions, which was coined the "CD 14 East Era".  But siding with the wrong waste disposal company prompted his early political disposal via a Recall Election.

Urteaga had previous disposal proclivities it seems, like trying to dispose of his past criminal issues and allegedly depositing Austin's School Board signatures in a circular container, some background via the "LA4Kids Blog". 

03/28/2009 07:05:25 AM PDT -- MONTEBELLO - A lawsuit filed against Burnside & Associates accuses Councilman Robert Urteaga of fraud and breach of contract for his work on a political campaign, officials said .Benjamin Austin claims the political consulting firm misrepresented him in his race for Los Angeles Unified School Board by failing to qualify him for the March 2009 ballot, according to a complaint filed March 3 with Los Angeles County Superior Court."At the end of the day, what happened was they told me they collected 500 signatures and validated them," Austin said. "They managed to collect them in the wrong district; they managed to use the wrong computer program to validate them."

..... and has Burnside & Associates had other "ethical issues"?

The complaint also accuses Urteaga of collecting signatures for a competing candidate simultaneously while working on Austin's campaign.
The complaint goes on to say that Burnside & Associates should have disclosed Urteaga's felonious past to Austin.In 1998, Urteaga pleaded no contest to grand theft of personal property totaling $30,000, according to court documents. He originally was accused of five counts of check forgery and one count of grand theft, but the District Attorney dropped the forgery counts in a July 1999 plea agreement.This is not the first time Burnside & Associates has been accused of fraud. In October 2008, Joon Il Kim, 30, was sentenced 90 days in jail for filing a false affidavit while working on behalf of Burnside & Associates. Meanwhile, Austin tried contacting Burnside immediately after hearing he did not qualify. Burnside refused to take his calls and the two have still not spoken, according to the complaint. Austin is suing to cover legal and campaign expenses and for the damage it has done to his reputation, he said."I am not a litigious guy, never sued anyone before ...," Austin said. "They (Burnside & Associates) handled it in a pretty strange way. We reached out to them, the day it all happened and she (Burnside) wouldn't take my call."

Makes us wonder when the "Villar Greuel Campaign" will announce the "Waste, Fraud and Abusers of Campaign Laws Coalition for the Villar Greuel"?

Your thoughts ..............

Scott Johnson in CD 14.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Wednesday

Woo-hoo it's already Wednesday!

It's the battle between Joseph Mailander's and Antonio Villaraigosa's Eastside. Latinos in the traditional neigborhoods east of the LA River are aghast as the yuppies who've moved to Silver Lake, Los Feliz and Echo Park and have annexed it to East Los. As one Boyle Heights poet said "If you look at the downtown skyline and city hall is on your left, you are not the Eastside.  It's a simple geographical fact."

Zuma Dogg is still mulling over whether or not he will run for the City Council seat to be vacated by Wendy Greuel. He notes the uphill battle of gathering hundreds of signatures for a nominating petition; tasks that were barely surmounted by Councilmember Bill Rosendahl and City Controller candidate Nick Patsaouras (and failed at by candidates Guillermo Huesca and Ben Austin).  If Zuma does run he says won't use the occupation of economist as his ballot designation; especially since we know one candidate who had a cow over that. In the meantime, an anti-ZD Mayor Sam reader says they'll challenge Zuma Dogg's residency but in this world of the City Clerk's "don't ask don't tell - you are if you say you are" policy that won't go anywhere.

NewsBusters points out that in reporting of the controversy around Mayor Villaraigosa's latest girlfriend the LA Times has failed to note his party affiliation whereas they do so for embattled local Republicans such as former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona.  In the meantime The Enterprise Report notes that KTLA General Manager isn't so concerned that his reporter Lu Parker is dating the mayor because he himself has dated reporters who have worked for him such as KCAL's Mia Lee. Well it's all in the family in LA.

In between the playa move of taking his new galpal to a bookstore (a classic maneuver any guy worth his salt knows will impress a lady), Mayor Villaraigosa signed the City Budget.  Lots of cuts and layoffs are promised; with the Mayor stating that fiscal realities will require to City to "calibrate' to the new financial paradigm.  One of the Mayor's plans to raise dough for the City has been to sell the City's parking meters and municipal lots to private operators.  However Councilmember Bill Rosendahl told his fellow members as well as the Ctiy's Chief Legislative Analyst that's a prescription to be run out on a rail as he expects Chicago Mayor Richard Daley will be for enacting a similar plan in the Windy City.

The controversial plan to build thousands of homes in the Newhall Pass known as Las Lomas may not be dead after all.  The Santa Clarita City Council is considering a draft environmental impact report while the company behind the project, Las Lomas Land, LLC says they plan to move forward.  Of course pigs also will fly and Mayor V will stop dating reporters.

Hotsheet for Thursday?

Nope, I've been working on the annual NoHo Jaycees Operation Santa Project (with special outreach to the children in Sylmar this year) this evening and I'm going to bed.  So consider this your open thread.

But first, a couple of morsels for you. Ben Austin is promising a major revolution to be announced soon at his website.  Riddle me this Ben-Man, if you can't get your own damn signatures or at least hire a decent signature gatherer why the hell would we trust you to lead a "revolution?"

Secondly - in case you wanted to see Mayor Villaraigosa spending the 89% of his time he is getting paid by you but not working for you, here's video of the Mayor as a Dr. Seuss character.

Blog away dum dums!

Austin Mess: Bigger, Stinkier, Curiouser

Round one: Ben Austin, charter school leader, parent advocate and presumed favorite son of Mayor Villaraigosa fails to get sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot to run for the school board seat being vacated by Marlene Canter. Austin claims that his political consultant, Sue Burnside, screwed the pooch including pulling over 300 signatures from the neighboring district of board member Marguerite Pointdexter LaMotte, hence not eligible to sign Austin's petition.

Round two: Sue Burnside issues a statement that she had nothing to do with Austin's ballot FUBAR; that she was out of town, unawares and that some mysterious figure misrepresented himself as her employee and bamboozled Austin. The Sister City identified this "mysterious figure" as allegedly Montebello Councilmember Robert Urteaga who at one time was listed as a member of Burnside's staff on her website.

"I was told that Burnside and Associates would take me as a client and gather signatures for our campaign. Robert Urteaga gathered our signatures on behalf of the firm."
Ben Austin

Round three: Via his website, Austin issues a statement calling Burnside's statement nothing but bunk saying "I called Burnside and Associates. I was told that Burnside and Associates would take me as a client and gather signatures for our campaign. Robert Urteaga gathered our signatures on behalf of the firm, told us that they had collected and validated the requisite amount of signatures -- until I later discovered that they had gathered signatures in the wrong district, and used the wrong list to validate the signatures."

In the meantime: Mayor Sam readers blast Burnside and smell something stinky, whether it was, at best, incompetence on Burnside and Urteaga's part or at worst, dirty tricks allegedly on the part of the two given their reported ties to the teachers' union, United Teachers Los Angeles and former Councilman Nick Pacheco, both not fans of the Mayor.

Sidenote: Back before the Mayor Sam bloggers outed themselves, Ben Austin was one of the many our readers thought was behind this blog. I deny any such charges.

Austin Mess Gets Deeper

You may remember that Ben Austin, an official with the Green Dot charter school chain and the rumored pick of Mayor Villaraigosa for the Westside school board seat currently held by the retiring Marlene Canter, failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for the March ballot.

In an LA Times interview, Austin told reporter David Zahniser that political consultant Sue Burnside mistakenly collected over 300 petition signatures from a neighboring district represented by Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte.

However in an email sent to several blogs and local writers, Burnside claims that Austin is not her client saying that "Burnside & Associates is not and has never been under contract to him or his Campaign. I have never met Mr. Austin."  Burnside later states than an unnamed independent contractor "misrepresented himself – without my knowledge or approval – as an employee of Burnside & Associates when he agreed to collect the signatures for Mr. Austin."

Insiders are telling us that that this "indepenedent contractor" is allegedly City of Montebello Councilmember Robert Urteaga who did work at one point for Burnside's firm at least according to this cached version of Burnside's company website (the current website does not list Urteaga's name).

In the meantime Austin's web site is still up despite the fact he will not be on the ballot. Perhaps he will run a write-in campaign.  

Hernandez Qualifies, Austin Flubs, Huesca Fails, Alarcon Breathes

Sigh of relief for Councilman Ricard Alarcon. Popular Spanish media personality Guillermo Huesca who had announced his campaign to challenge the Seventh District Councilman has failed to garner enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. 

Huesca's fail follows that of intended School Board candidate Ben Austin who similarly didn't qualify for the ballot.  What's up with these guys?

In related news, longtime civic activist David Hernandez qualifed to place his name on the 2009 Mayoral ballot. Speaking of Ben Austin, Zuma Dogg's blog picks up on a David Zahniser LA Times piece that reports, remarkably, Austin's campaign solicited petition signatures IN THE WRONG DISTRICT!

In Honor of Ben Austin and Guillermo Huesca

One of our readers suggested this...it's a fabulous idea!

Green Dot Staffer Does Not Qualify for LAUSD Ballot

Zuma Dogg is reporting that Ben Austin, who has been an assistant city attorney, an aide to former Mayor Riordan and most recently part of the Green Dot charter school chain has not turned in the required number of signatures to run for the Los Angeles Board of Education seat being vacated by the retiring Marlene Canter.

Ben, considered the favorite candidate of Mayor Villaraigosa, already put up a website and was the subject of a Steve Lopez puff piece in the Former Fishwrap of Record.

At present, according to the City Clerk's office, candidates teacher Steve Zimmer and teacher/union activist Mike Stryer have qualified for the board while another presumed front runner, parent advocate Bill Ring, has not yet had his petition finally certified.