Gov. Jerry Brown reacts to Los Angeles CBS 2 reporter David Goldstein, who asked him about the station’s report on Caltrans employees using state rental trucks for personal use – Photo coutesy of KCBS
This is how the incident went down with Brown:
Excerpted from The Sacramento Bee – Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday downplayed a Los Angeles television station’s report of Caltrans employees using state rental trucks for personal purposes, saying “only God” can watch over every one of the state’s hundreds of thousands of public employees.
“Caltrans has been looking at it. I would be glad to look into it,” the Democratic governor said after a speech to the California state conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “If somebody took some time off to do something, we’ll find it, but, you know, to blow it up like it’s some major thing – there are 300,000 employees in the state of California, and I’d like to watch over all of them, but I think only God can accomplish that.”
The report, by CBS 2 in Los Angeles, included video surveillance it said showed state workers using rental vehicles to run personal errands during business hours.
One of the Caltrans employees named in the story quit Friday.
Sumner Baker, a supervisor in the department’s Colton field office, was identified as driving a state-rented Dodge Ram four-door truck during work hours to buy alcohol.
“The employee shown buying liquor has resigned,” Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty said in a press statement.
The department has launched “a full investigation” into the use of its vehicles, Dougherty said. “Any other employees who are found to have violated laws or department policies will be disciplined.”
The report included video of a confrontation between Brown and reporter David Goldstein in which Brown said Goldstein is “like a thug.”
Asked about that remark Friday afternoon, Brown said, “I think jumping in your face at the funeral of (former Lt. Gov.) Mervyn Dymally and only wanting to know about something that’s in his cellphone that he forces me to look at while he puts a camera in my face and a microphone, I don’t think that is the civility and the gentility that I expect from the old CBS network.”
Video by CBS appeared to show Brown taking Goldstein’s cellphone briefly, before giving it back.
The report comes as Brown campaigns for Proposition 30, his Nov. 6 ballot measure to raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California’s highest earners. Opponents, who seized earlier this year on a state parks scandal and pay raises for legislative employees to criticize the measure, released an online-only ad Friday including video from the CBS report.
– Read more of this article by David Siders and Jon Ortiz at The Sacramento Bee.
Watch the CBS2 video at blogs.sacbee.com – The CBS2 video reveals surveillance of Caltrans employees using department rental trucks for commuting and personal business during work hours, including one worker who made trips to buy liquor. Witness the heated confrontation between Gov. Jerry Brown and CBS reporter David Goldstein.
ALTHOUGH the California Governor expects civility from local watchdog media amid statewide corruption, the L.A. Times fails to give credit where real journalism credit is due. What was the name of that CBS television reporter again? The Times isn’t saying.
Excerpted from The Los Angeles Times – A Department of Transportation employee has resigned after an investigation was launched into allegations that some workers were using trucks rented by the agency for personal use.
The allegations came to light after KCBS-TV broadcast a report Thursday night using hidden video that apparently showed state workers driving vehicles meant for official use for trips to buy alcohol and shop for shoes and food.
In the KCBS piece a reporter for the station is seen trying to show Gov. Jerry Brown some of the video on his phone as Brown is walking into an event, but got a finger in the chest from the governor who accused him of acting “like a thug.”
Brown spokesman Gil Duran said the KCBS report failed to show an encounter the day before when the same reporter approached Brown at the funeral of Mervyn Dymally. “The reporter made a very bad impression by attempting to ambush the governor at the back door of the mortuary during the funeral service,” Duran said.
The governor’s opponents are trying to use the story, and the governor’s reaction, to drag down support for Proposition 30, the tax measure for which Brown is now crisscrossing the state.
– Read the article by Anthony York at The Los Angeles Times.
