LEANING RIGHT-The Los Angeles County district attorney's office recently looked into taxpayers’ misspent money on the Mark Ridley-Thomas garage last year.
Newly released records show that a contractor charged the county $6,239 to perform work during a project to install a security system that included replacing interior walls in Ridley-Thomas' converted garage and trenching the property for an electrical upgrade.
Documents obtained from the county under the California Public Records Act, provide the most complete picture yet of the scope and cost of the work in September and October at the supervisor's Leimert Park home.
District attorney's office spokeswoman Jean Guccione said the office's review grew out of a complaint that prosecutors received. She declined to elaborate.
County supervisors are entitled to home security systems provided by the government, but not to unrelated improvements to their property at taxpayers' expense. Ridley-Thomas has insisted that the work at his home was completely proper and that he reimbursed the county for any items not related to the security system.
The total cost to taxpayers for the job was $10,038, according to Assistant County Counsel Judy Whitehurst.
The records show that the county contractor was given the task of removing wall paneling and drywall from the supervisor's detached garage and installing about 640 square feet of new drywall. The project included adding new baseboards as well as painting all new woodwork. Outside the garage, the contractor was to dig a trench through lawn and concrete from the home's electrical panel to the garage, the records say. The work was to entail planting up to 1,000 square feet of Bermuda grass sod. The records did not detail how much of the work was done.
John Thompson, the county project manager who oversaw the work, preciously said that trench was dug to bury conduit as part of electrical upgrades to make more power available to the garage.
Thompson said the garage already had standard current, but he believed the power upgrade was necessary for the security system. He added, however, that he was not an electrical expert.
"It's a county supervisor and I'm going to make it look nice," Thompson said. "Our function is to keep the supervisors happy. They're our boss."
This all comes on the heels of the pressure he was under for planning to renovate his office using $707,000 of taxpayer money in 2009.
The project came as the county's unemployment rate is among the highest in the country and the budget contains serious cuts. The county is under a hiring freeze and has cut a number of positions and services.
Ridley-Thomas strongly defended the renovations as needed and overdue.
"I fight for my employees, I fight for my constituents, and I fight for decent standards for persons to work in. And this is not quite what it ought to be and it's time to move that agenda forward, unapologetically," said Ridley-Thomas. "There's no reason to think this office should have anything less than any other office. That day is over, gone, goodbye."
I am starting to wonder whether there is a vice in the garage for use on your gonads if you object to Thomas’ expenditures of taxpayer money.
What does he actually do in that garage?
(Kay Martin is an author and a CityWatch contributor. His new book, Along for the Ride, is now available. He can be reached at [email protected] This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 94
Pub: Nov 21, 2014
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