INSIDE INGLEWOOD-The Forum is opening this week, and with any venue there is sure to be ticket scalpers and other criminals lurking about.
Residents of Inglewood, who have in the past publicly opposed the mayor, James T. Butts, and his hand-picked city council candidates, were recently approached by the mayor with tickets in hand to attend a Tuesday night “awards” ceremony at the Forum.
The event, which is ostensibly to award the mayor for having given away $18 million to the previous Forum owner, The Forum Enterprises, Inc., (FEI), to facilitate the sale of the famed venue to Madison Square Garden (MSG) in mid-2012, took place Tuesday night at 6 p.m. as the Forum opened its six-night run for the opening event featuring the Eagles.
One of those residents, Theola Gardner, claims that Butts and his “executive secretary,” Melanie McDade-Dickens, came to Gardner’s house on Sunday, January 12. The mayor had a ticket for Gardner to an exclusive event at the Forum’s opening later in the week.
Despite Gardner’s polite refusal to attend the event, the mayor left the invitation with her.
The mayor’s wife, Judy Butts, was not present when James T. Butts and McDade-Dickens visited Gardner on Sunday.
Other residents who were extended similar invitations feel that Butts and McDade-Dickens chose to personally invite Gardner owing to an incident that occurred on June 7, 2012 when the campaign manager of Butts’ hand-picked city council candidate, George Dotson, allegedly threatened Gardner.
That campaign manager, Oliver T. Unaka, had a LAPD police report filed against him.
“She’s a problem for Dotson, especially that she lives across the way from him,” said one former city hall insider who requested anonymity. Like many others who confirmed receiving the remarkable invitations, she refused the invite to the Forum event.
Unaka has only been seen in the area once since the LAPD report was filed: at a December 4 city hall Christmas party hosted by Senator Roderick Wright and California Assemblyman Steven Bradford and held in their offices on the sixth floor of Inglewood city hall. Unaka came to the party with Dotson and his assistant, Alicia Smith.
The story about the threat can be read on CityWatch and is titled “Inglewood School Teacher Files Assault Charge against Councilman’s Campaign Manager.”
On the night of the alleged threat by Unaka toward Gardner, Butts was later thrown out of the same venue for his egregious behavior. The story about the mayor’s ejection can be read on CityWatch and is titled “Inglewood’s Mayor Butts Tossed from Town Hall Meeting.”
Neither Butts nor the Forum’s community outreach liaison, Jason Lombard, responded to requests for comment.
(Randall Fleming is a veteran journalist and magazine publisher. He has worked at and for the New York Post, the Brooklyn Spectator and the Los Feliz Ledger. He is currently editor-in-chief at the Morningside Park Chronicle, a monthly newspaper based in Inglewood, CA and on-line at www.MorningsideParkChronicle.com)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 5
Pub: Jan 17, 2014