Closed Door Meeting: Don't Spill the Beans...

Apparaently there are more Beans to be spilled in Grand Terrace. It is time for some one to open the doors to the behind door meetings.


Grand Terrace to search beyond City Hall for a new manager

10:54 PM PDT on Wednesday, July 15, 2009
By DARRELL R. SANTSCHIThe Press-Enterprise
GRAND TERRACE - Acting City Manager Steve Berry will not be the city's permanent manager, council members have decided.
After a 3½-hour closed-door session, the City Council voted late Tuesday to let Berry stay as acting city manager until the council hires a permanent city manager. The field of candidates for permanent city manager, to be chosen sometime after mid-August, will be limited to those who do not work for the city.

The council vote was 4-0, with Councilwoman Bea Cortes abstaining.

A part of his performance review Tuesday, some council members had said earlier, was to discuss a recently disclosed San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department report from 2003 that alleged Berry was involved in embezzlement and fraud seven years ago. He allowed a county jail work release inmate to install protective window tinting at several city buildings.

Council members declined Wednesday to discuss details of the closed-door meeting.
Mayor Maryetta Ferre said Wednesday that she voted with the majority "because I thought it was the right thing to do."

"We believe it is in the best interest of the city to limit the recruitment to outside candidates only to give a fresh perspective to the organization," she said.

Councilman Walt Stanckiewitz said "there was a lot of discussion" at the meeting and "we were all put on notice ... that this is a closed session and woe be unto anybody who spills the beans."

During the public portion of Tuesday's meeting, Berry spoke of his accomplishments as acting city manager over the past 13 months.

"The last year has been a very trying year for all of us," he said.

Berry said he helped the city celebrate its 30th anniversary, open a senior center, work on a new shopping center and balance the city budget.
He said he had served the city eight years and asked for an opportunity to "move this city forward."

The sheriff's investigation suggested that Berry had the windows of his car tinted at the city's expense.

Berry has contended that while the city paid for more materials than were needed to tint the windows of the city buildings, he obtained more than $700 in refunds when he found out about it. He and the work release inmate, John David Carranza, denied to sheriff's investigators that Berry had Carranza tint his car windows and said the work was done by another man who worked for Carranza.

Berry said he paid for the car window tinting out of his own pocket.

Berry, who was accused of falsifying time cards indicating when the inmate worked, said some of the work was done on evenings and weekends and that he believed the time was being put in because the work was getting done.

According to the Sheriff's Department, the original crime report was turned over to the city.

Then-City Manager Tom Schwab acknowledged last week that he had quashed the investigation to save the city embarrassment and took no disciplinary action against Berry.

Berry was the assistant city manager at the time and has been acting city manager since Schwab suffered a medical problem in June 2008 and went on leave. The two vied briefly for appointment as the city's permanent city manager before the City Council decided earlier this year to open the recruitment to all comers.

Schwab has since retired. At Berry's suggestion, the council voted to eliminate the assistant city manager's position as a cost-saving measure.

The criminal allegations, which surfaced as Berry was a candidate for the permanent job, have spawned debate in the once-sleepy town of 12,500 people. Some council members have complained that they were not told about the window-tinting incident.

Berry said earlier that he had received an anonymous letter claiming that the sheriff's report was made public by Margie Miller, publisher of the Grand Terrace City News weekly newspaper and wife of Councilman Jim Miller. Margie Miller denied leaking the document.

Miller's newspaper had been publishing legal advertising for the city, but the practice was halted, Margie Miller said, when Berry sent a letter in September saying it was improper to do so as long as Jim Miller is a councilman.

District attorney's investigators arrested Jim Miller on Wednesday on a warrant charging him with felony conflict of interest in connection with his votes to approve payments to the newspaper over a two-year period.
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