Times: Greuel may have missed red flags in fight against Home Depot

Public Advocate of the Community

UPDATE: Audio - Zuma Dogg tells story of chance meeting with woman alleged to be at center of alleged Wendy Greuel PR campaign against Home Depot.

Something I learned this week...always listen to Zuma Dogg.

Completely plugged in, even in retirement, and nearly always prescient, the former radio executive turned performance artist turned community advocate has really never steered me wrong.

Last week, ZD brought to my attention a story that I thought was irrelevant, old news and not likely to catch attention in the milieu of the Mayoral race.

I was wrong.

Today, the LA Times published a story that, in seeking to block a controversial Home Depot in Sunland-Tujunga, at the time part of her then City Council District, Greuel may have failed to disclose her business interests in a local building supply firm. 

Full disclosure, I was for the Home Depot before I was against it and currently live less than a quarter-mile from the site. I still believe, for many reasons, blocking the Home Depot was good for the community.

Co-Owner of Frontier Building Supply
Wendy Greuel, Candidate for Mayor

In the Times story by Jack Dolan, several ethics officials remark that Greuel should have recused herself from votes on the Home Depot matter. The story alludes the matter could come before the state's Fair Political Practices Commission.

Greuel's position is that her business would not be affected by the Home Depot.

Beyond the surface level issue of Greuel's ownership of Frontier Building Supply, a San Fernando Valley based construction supply firm with a branch in Oxnard, Zuma Dogg presented additional potentially even more damaging allegations against Greuel.

In a blog post last week, reprinted from a 2011 post authored by Mr. Dogg, the advocate/blogger presents claims that City Hall insiders told him that Greuel allegedly hired a PR firm to assist her with the Home Depot fight.

It must be noted that these allegations are from anonymous sources and are not verified. We are happy to publish information to the contrary. That being said, the Times article is interestingly timely in light of the information Zuma presented to me last week and has published at his blog.

We will continue to follow this up and extend the offer right here to present any rebuttals from the Wendy Greuel campaign.