The following quotes from the Littlerock Town Council’s Apr. 10 meeting highlight Councilman Carl Iannalfo’s comments, which have become affectionately known on the council agenda as “Carl’s Rants.”
Image of Michael D. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse
“But one way to relieve crowding in the jail system is to put ‘bad people’ in there – instead of a guy who’s got two cars in his front yard. It’s just outrageous. Anyway, we sent Jackie a letter saying we have a solution that’s a real solution to the overcrowding. And maybe it’s time that a guy who’s smoking a joint doesn’t go to jail for six months. (Instead) he gets a fine and goes through some kind of program to ween him off of that desert flower” (laughter from public).
THE WRONG PEOPLE ARE IN JAIL
“The letter that (town council) President (Ron) Bolger and I worked on basically says the prison issue is an issue, and we think the wrong people are going to prison – and that these (code enforcement) misdemeanors shouldn’t result in incarceration. But that’s the default sentence in court. Anything that happens – boom – jail. And we’ve seen some pretty outrageous behavior in the courtroom by some judges. One of them started yelling at one of the attorney’s for the defendant. Then he said, ‘I’m leaving to get some coffee!’ And I said, ‘Try decaf!’ (laughs from the public). It was just my opinion that he was out of it.”
“Anyway, I also wrote a letter to Vance Pomeroy (president of the Association of Rural Town Councils) saying that she’s lamenting the number of people in the jail system and wondering how the problem could be addressed.” Councilman Iannalfo reads from the letter: “Since the district attorney is the supervisor of the deputy district attorneys and has failed to reply to our urging as a council to meet with us and the community to discuss some solutions, many residents find the obvious fix for the problem as lacking in real commitment from the county.”
“The policies of putting a default system into action everytime something happens is causing a lot of problems,” Iannalfo told the public. “It’s causing a lot of expense. The wrong people are in jail. I had a co-worker of mine who got into some trouble and was acquitted by a jury. They retried him until they got a conviction. They stuck him in a sentence of six months in jail. He did six days. … The 20 and 30 year olds in there with him were saying, ‘What are you doing in here?’ He told them, ‘Well, I’m a bad guy, according to the court system.’”
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SUN VILLAGE SMEAR CAMPAIGN
“I went to the PO Box today expecting to find something from Jackie Lacey, but what I found instead was a package of information about Kirk Collins, who was actually on the Sun Village Town Council as their chaplain. He brought up the issue with embezzlement and inappropriate use of funding by people currently on the council. And so we have an anonymous letter,” Iannalfo said, holding up the manila envelope.
Speaking to John Burton from the LA County Department of Public Works, who spoke earlier at the meeting, Iannalfo said, “Just as you mentioned with your job search (requirements), the Littlerock Town Council does not want Communists, Nazis or anonymous complainers. Anonymous complainers, the worst kind of hate crime there is, because you have no opportunity to confront your accuser or present evidence – if you go to court.”
Holding up the document, Iannalfo continued: “Mr. Collins (is the target of) a cut-and-paste document that is circulating around town. Some of it has legitimate information in it – most of it does not. And so, having been involved in a deal like that back in the 70s, I know the damage it can do to someone’s reputation. He is currently going to court on Wednesday. He has two or possibly a third lawsuit against the Sun Village Town Council for their misbehavior, in fact, (claiming) that they don’t really represent people in Sun Village. And he told me that today in person – that they don’t allow an opportunity for anyone to vote to get onto their council.”
“They claimed in the newspaper the other day that no people signed up to run for the two positions; it actually should be a lot more. They were appointed and selected, not elected. So how can you represent a community if some crony appoints you and says, ‘Okay, for now on you’re legitimate, and now we want two more people’? And (they said) ‘no one showed up’ (to register), even though they did. So that’s kind of … I don’t know what term I could put on it that wouldn’t be offensive. Let’s just say that it’s not the right way to do things.”
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INTERPRETIVE MEMOS ON CODE ENFORCEMENT
“While I’m on the subject of the Sun Village Town Council and the court system, the (David) Cleveland case, which was a land use case, was dismissed by the district attorney – subject to refile later. There are some problems with that, according to the code of civil procedure. I won’t discuss it here. But, it may not be possible to refile it. He was originally charged with a crime, and now it’s being downgraded from a serious crime to a misdemeanor. I think they just want to run the clock out and make it go away.”
“But it’s not going well (for the county). He (Cleveland) has a very powerful legal defense team, and they’re definitely making progress for all of us who will benefit from all of that – should he prevail – because some of these ‘regulations’ that the yard cops enforce really don’t even exist. And we’ve had the supervisor of the yard cops, as we call them, admit that he has never read the interpretive memos, has never read the procedures manual on what they’re supposed to be doing, and yet he takes the position that he doesn’t know why that is, and why they do what they do even though he directs them to do it.”
“Pretty outrageous behavior when considering that people are going to jail and losing their property over this nonsense,” Iannalfo said. “In the meantime, she (Kerstin Schlegel, Department of Regional Planning) and the deputy district attorney, have convicted and jailed a number of people in Littlerock and surrounding areas.”
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Littlerock Town Council meetings are held 7 to 10 p.m. every 2nd Thursday of the Month at the Littlerock High School Community Center, 10833 East Ave. R, Littlerock, CA 93543. Visit facebook.com/littlerockca for more information.
