From the Email Inbox: Malfeasance or Corruption or Incompetence?

Dear GrandpaTerrace

Is it just me or does anyone else see a pattern of malfeasance from the City Council and City management.

1. Manhole Builders delayed. City did not follow State and Federal guidelines required by law.

2. Outdoor Adventure Center. On hold. Lawsuit. City did not follow State and Federal guidelines required by law.

3.Senior Housing. On hold. Lawsuit. Despite what the City Manager says in the newspaper. City did not follow State and Federal guidelines required by law.

4.All RDA-CRA and all City funded projects in the city should be placed on hold until an independent State agency can assess if all State and Federal guidelines required by law are being followed and if not remove the person responsable from the city payroll. Start running the City in a competent fashion and not as a open check book for the developers and friends of the council.

5.Post all public documents on the city web site as required by the Open Records Act or The Brown Act.

6.Demand that the Federal Inspector General conduct an audit of the RDA-CRA and General fund with published results.

The OAC. Mr. Schwab at a recent Council meeting told the owner of the skating ring and the owner of a business on Commerce Way that the Barton Road off ramp would not be moved until between 2013 and 2017 and that their business would not be affected. But we read recently that the Cal-Trans reports will be done in six months and San-Bag wants to be the lead agency. The City Staff Report minutes of April 28, 2005 state an answer of a question regarding the moving of the off ramp. Mr. Schwab said that the City would spend between six and seven million dollars and move the ramp in 2006-2007. The OAC seems to be dependent on the moving of the off ramp and I don't believe the Grand Terrace Partners are going to wait eight years to undertake this project.

At a recent Council meeting Mr. Karger stated he and another developer crunched the numbers on the Senior Housing project and by their figures the Corp. for Better Housing is taking between six and seven million dollars profit. I would believe Mr. Karger before the Corp. for Better Housing, who calls themselves a non-profit but is listed as a charity with the Attorney General. Their tax reports show no donations to charity.Sixty apartments to an acre when the General Plan says no more than twenty.

At a meeting with candidate Sandoval, who ran for School Board member, he stated he runs a company that the State of California, along with another company based in San Diego, use to build this type of low income housing. He said he questioned City Hall as to why there were no open bids taken on the project. He also stated as long as he has been in the business he never heard of the Corp. for Better Housing.


Ms. Silverstien, of the Corp. for Better Housing stated repeatedly that the apartments were to be for low to moderate income tenents. After the Council voted approval she then changed it to low to low low income. I wonder how many of the people that were given a place on the waiting list will be over qualified. Even if they place their assets in trust.

The High School coming, being built over the site of a chrome plating shop that used cyanide. The soon to be wideing of Mt. Veron. The forthcoming wideing of Michegan, the Town Center with all the differents maps so no one knows what is the correct one. The library that the City will have to pay to Jacobsen seven thousand five hundred dollars a month rent, even though at the Town meeting Mr. Schwab and Mr. Jacobson stated no city funds were going to be used to pay this rent. Two days later in a newspaper story Mr. Schwab said that the rent would be paid by the City or the City Redevelopment Agency. The inspection fee on rental homes by the city, the increase of user fee's and copy fee's by the city. The constant stonewalling on releasing documents by the city. The Peaker Plant that Cal-Pine was to build next to the High School and now Cal-Pine has sold out to another company. The original plan on the OAC that contained no market study or feasability study and proved to be greatly flawed. The authors of that plan that cost the taxpayers of Grand Terrace hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, Mr. Megna and Mr. Schwab, who by his own words at a council meeting claimed to be the one that brought this failed plan to the city, are allowed to continue their bumbling ruining of Grand Terrace. Has anyone seen Mr. Megna since the market study was done. I feel the City should ask for a refund from Mr.Megna and a reduction in Mr.Schwabs salary and benefits until he can prove competence. The city would accept no less from any other employee.

We all need to hold the Council accountable. We found out after the fact that when the City Council did the underhanded, backroom deal on the Dodson property, that again in violation of the law, the Mayor stated that "No reportable action was taken" and in fact there was. Councilman Hilkey distanced himself from that lie several times in open meetings, stating that within ten minutes of going into closed session, all but he, had voted for a one million two hundred ninty thousand dollar deal, and the Mayor lied on the record.

I wonder where the elite of this city are. The members of the social clubs, the political clubs, the people of influence. They hide. They don't want their names out there. They would rather have dishonest, possibly corrupt people in city hall than to stand up for what is right and take the chance of getting a little dirt on themselves. Thats o.k. The little people are carrying the weight, the unwashed masses that these elite would never associate with are doing all the heavy lifting and fighting for their homes and in fact the homes of all that live in Grand Terrace. They should be ashamed but then thats not socially acceptable at the lunchons.Their lack of action will come back to haunt them when it comes to their neighborhoods. Because things change and councils change. This one will not be there forever. Who knows, the next council may see Honey Hills as an excellent location for a golf course or a restaurant lane with a view. I'd eat there.