Re “Has Any Mud from Bell Spilled Onto City Hall?”
I can’t believe that City Councilman Andy Weissman could make the statements he did yesterday about comparisons between Bell and Culver City to Ari Noonan and still keep a straight face.
I think it would be best for Andy Weissman and the rest of the City Council to give this excuse for using the same auditing firm, Mayer Hoffman McCann, that was involved in the Bell scandal:
“We were duped by city staff.”
Mayer Hoffman McCann probably will use the “we were duped” excuse when all is said and done in the “there is no problem with Redevelopment Agency Audit in Culver City.” The City Council and the crew of present and former city managers, Mark Scott, Lamont Ewell and John Nachbar, may all want to adopt the “we were duped” defense.
I don’t have a lot of time today to talk about all of the comparisons I have brought up in previous articles over the past three years.
But I will give you a few.
Robert Rizzo, at the center of the Bell scandal, and Jerry Fulwood, retired City Manager, both worked for the city of Rancho Cucamonga.
I believe they were there at the same time, for a short while.
This has nothing to do with the scandal, but both city managers have a love for horses. Mr. Rizzo’s $1.5 million horse ranch in Washington state is a lot bigger than Mr. Fulwood’s horse property in San Bernardino County.
But Mr. Rizzo has been a city manager a lot longer than Mr. Fulwood. Personally, I have always loved horses. I would have loved to just have any kind of horse property.
Mr. Rizzo went to the city of Bell by way of the city of Hesperia.
Mr. Fulwood came to the city of Culver City by way of the city of La Canada Flintridge.
Something interesting occurred in Culver City and in the city of Bell in 2005.
Consider the Similarities
Culver City was in the process of revising its City Charter and converting to a city manager form of government because the city would operate more efficiently. At the same time, the city of Bell under Mr. Rizzo’s guidance was transforming itself into a charter city so it could operate more efficiently also.
With the assistance of highly paid consultant Jack Hoffman, the city of Culver City was getting a new City Charter, a city manager-form of government, it revised civil service rules, negotiated high pay raises for all employee groups (especially the management groups), named a new personnel director, a new finance director and (so Mr. Fulwood said) a more efficient form of government.
So who is Jack Hoffman?
Jack retired in 2003 as the Personnel Director for the city of Glendale. He was very well liked by all of the employee groups because they all got great contracts before he left.
Also, he worked very closely for five years with neighboring La Canada Flintridge City Manager Jerry Fulwood. Another person who liked working with Mr. Hoffman in Glendale was Glendale Police Chief Randy Adams.
Wait a second.
Where have we heard that name?
Oh, yes, he is the same disgraced Chief of Police Randy Adams who was making $480,000 working for the city of Bell.
Both the city of Culver City and the city of Bell were on similar paths in 2005. Mr. Rizzo had been the City Manager at Bell for many years. His plan was in place to take the taxpayers’ money. All he needed was to get the city of Bell to convert to a Charter City and his big payday would come.
Mr. Fulwood’s path was similar, but a little different He already worked for a Charter City. He just needed it to revise its Charter to convert to a city manager-form of government, and he could start to work on his big payday.
Then the economy started to go south. Pay raises went through the roof, and the house of cards began to fall.
An Echo Chamber?
The house of cards in Bell buried Mr. Rizzo.
Mr. Fulwood could see the weakness in his house of cards. He got out in time. Who will be trapped when the Culver City house of cards falls?
Probably the entire City Council and city staff although it may be too late for them, given all of the information they have had for years about what has been going on with the city’s finances.
Mr. Weissman stated that attorneys for Culver City all opined that they disagree with the state Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes’ report (let’s not call it an investigation) they don’t think the report is accurate.
Before Mr. Weissman and the City Council get too comfortable on the Westside, remember in the city of Bell, none of the city’s attorneys or the police chief went to jail.
Only the City Council and city staff.
Mr. Smith, a retired Culver City police officer, may be contacted at scsinternationalinvestigations.com
