Why All Of The Sudden: 5 Plus Years

Many letters to the Editor in the Grand Terrace City News will say "why all of the sudden is all this bad news, or controversy or distressing news coming out about City Hall and the past Schwab/Berry Administration.

Well, readers of this same blog often start out saying why are you so negative about what is going on in Grand Terrace. This can't be true if the issues haven't been heard of before this.

Well, this it the truth of the matter. Citizens have been addressing their concerns and issues with City Hall at City Council Meetings. Those issues were voiced and then forgotten. Most Citizens don't watch or attend City Hall Meetings. The Press does not cover the City Council Meetings well. So the information was hidden by virtue of the process and intent of the City Manager to obscure the free flow of information and transparency of the horsetrading he was doing behind the closed doors.

This blog has been the repository of many of those citizens work and labors at digging out the information. Thus this blog has been a pain in the side of Schwab/Berry for years. If a citizen or news agency wanted to know now the information was recorded and available on line.

The city's web page at the time of the beginning of this blog did not contain Minutes, or Agenda records. Nor did it offer any documents on line, or the Council Packet information. Much has improved in terms of information available to the public from the City's own web page. In part this improvement came about because if the Blog could do it, the City Could.

The blog makes no money, and it costs zero to put it on the web other than the labor and efforts of the citizens who bring issues to the City Council. These people give their name and address at City Council Meetings, and they are not heard by the council, but put it on the blog unsigned, and all of the sudden it can't be so because there is no name associated with the post, or the blog. HA!

Grand Terrace can be a great place to live and do business. However, the City Hall has been run like a Kingdom with Knights and Ladies given special privileges due to class or political position. It is time that era is ended and cleaned up. It may have taken Walt Stanckiewits some time to get his Light Bulb Goes On Moment, the Miller arrest flipped the switch. Thank goodness that he began to see clearly what was and is behind the stench in City Hall. Years of Schwab/Berry horsetrading and lackadaisical management for the benefit of a few select individuals and developers has finally been declared unacceptable. The other council members are party to the stench or they have no light bulb to go on. The Triad still are defencive and supportive of their excesses and past errors.

Sure we have to go forward from the point where we are. But, future development and RDA transactions should be done in the open, and not excessively supported by the taxpayers.

Schwab entrapped Miller with the city taking adds in the Grand Terrace City News. Schwab hire Steve Berry and Bea Cortes may have been the ones to trigger the trap, but it was Schwab who set Miller up.

Schwab entrapped all council members by not paying taxes or deductions on stipends, (there are employee and employer shares on those payments). Schwab over paid RDA stipends, in the past so will that mean the RDA members who were overpaid will have to retroactively pony up the over payments?

Schwab made the staff recommendation that the RDA house was sold to the City and the City provide him a house. There was no reason that the City Council would have known he was homeless and needed a home because he was getting a divorce. He already lived in GT with his wife and family just prior to the "Need" for a house.

We don't need Schwab on the City Council. We need to purge ourselves of his management style and decisions where ever possible. Let's hope more of the past City Council Members are not threatened with felony charges for the miss deeds he directed or involved them in.