GT City Manager Seeking a Legal Opinion on "RDA Loans"

The Grand Terrace City News, covered the RDA Loans to the City General Fund Fiasco left behind by Ex City Manager Tom Schwab and Steve Berry.

The new information was in the last paragraph of the article. City Manager Betsy Adams is reportedly seeking a legal opinion on how to proceed with this issue, and looking to get back to the council with the answer as soon as possible.

Let's hope she is looking beyond the legal advise of City Attorney Harper, hired by Schwab and continued by Berry. As a City Attorney he has allowed and in some cases participated in activities that he should have been advising the City Council and Members of the City Staff that they were not in compliance with State Law and Regulations.

Let's hope that the process includes a recovery of all of the income and houses and cars or other perks, Mr. Schwab and Mr. Berry received because of funds "Loaned" to the City's General funds. This would be called a Claw Back. Let's hope that it includes the Claw Back of Legal Fees paid to City Attorney Harper to defend the City and the RDA against his bad advise. The RDA in particular can not be involved or pay for legal actions. Yet funds were no doubt used for this purpose.

Finding where the money went will determine where the money can be recovered.

Walt Stanckewits was quoted as saying he was not sure whether the problem was created through mismanagement of funds or slight of hand.

Good luck City Manager Betsy Adams. Keep after this issue and you'll be exactly what GT Needs in a city Manager.

GT is a small town. We need real employment for our citizens. We don't need more stores that pay minimum wage. We need affordable housing for people who do work for minimum wage. We need Agriculture Parks that are public owned and leased to farmers for a share of the income. We need our full property rights restored to home owners and businesses. We need to have a city staff that earns about the same as the average citizens not a Royalty paid for by us peasants. We need the working city employees such as the teachers at the day care, and the people on the lowest end of the pay scale to have sufficient incomes to live in GT. The distance between the lowest paid GT Employee and the highest paid is a gross economic injustice.

What we don't need is an empty KMart kind of RDA Development. Look at the RDA Developments just down the hill. They don't work, we don't need to repeat the same error. Development should be a slow and natural process not the Big Development single Developer Promoted by Tom Schwab and Steve Berry.