Although the turnout was light for Tuesday’s meeting, heavy criticism from a few continued to hound San Gabriel City Council members for what has been seen as a lack of response to the Mar. 8 lawsuit allegations filed by the Police Officer’s Association.
Prior to the Mar. 12 meeting, the city filed a response to the police association’s lawsuit, requesting a trial by jury and denying the allegations that city officials illegally spent $5.7 million in employee retirement funds. The City Council also distributed packets of information that publicly denied the mishandling of retirement funds as alleged in the POA’s lawsuit.
Although the city maintains that its handling of funds have been managed “prudently, appropriately, and in full accordance with the laws of the State of California,” city officials continue to be pressed for answers – but, more specifically, along the lines of its failed negotiations with employee labor unions.
San Gabriel resident Joseph Jackson was one of few who have publicly asked about the actual allegations of the lawsuit. “I sure as hell would like to know what’s going on with the allegation of $7.5 million from the Mar. 13th meeting,” he said. “I think you guys are like a microcosm of the federal government, and it’s time that something comes out on where you are about this, or what really are the facts and numbers.”
The city has maintained there has been no wrongdoing and suspects the timeliness of the POA’s lawsuit is in response to failed labor negotiations with its employees, including police, fire and others. Speakers during the Mar. 13 meeting also chose to take issue with the politics of deadlocked negotiations between the city and its employee labor groups, rather than to discuss accusations that the city has illegally spent $5.7 million in retirement funds.
At the following council meeting, Mar. 20, several members of the Police Officers’ Association took turns reading consecutive portions of a 12-page statement that addressed the City Council’s Mar. 13 written response to the POA’s lawsuit. The POA’s statement described the city’s response as “grossly inaccurate and misleading.”
As the POA’s sole representative during last Tuesday’s public comments, Detective Richard Flores told the city in no uncertain terms that his association was still waiting to receive responses to questions unrelated to the lawsuit. More specifically he asked, “Is the City Council going to direct city administration to correct the misinformation released by the city regarding police salaries, police staffing, recruitment and retention statistics?”
Flores then reminded the council how in 2008 the POA helped raise community support for the San Gabriel Utility Users Tax, which passed with over 66 percent of the public’s approval. Proposing an increase from 6 to 8 percent in tax to fund general city services, the measure also sought to preserve fire and paramedic emergency response times and improve police protection and investigations that reduce crime.
Calling the measure back into memory, Flores asked whether the council believed that the Police Department had been adequately staffed since the approval of the 2008 Utility Users Tax. Going a step further, a step possibly relating more to the lawsuit’s allegations, he asked, “How are the funds collected under the User Utility Tax being allocated?”
But there was no answer from the council to these questions. After the last of the public comments, Mayor Kevin B. Sawkins reminded the public that the council was unable to respond to some issues raised. “If it’s not on the City Council agenda, [that is] if it has not been noticed for this particular meeting, we are not at liberty to speak on these matters.”
