LA WATCHDOG-IBEW Union Bo$$ d’Arcy is racking up some hefty legal bills in his effort to cover up how the Joint Safety and Training Institutes spent over $40 million of Ratepayer money under a deal cut by the IBEW and its cronies on the City Council.
But who is footing the bill for all these legal fees?
More than likely, the Ratepayer funded Joint Safety and Training Institutes are picking up the tab, without hardly a peep from “our” City Council that has been MIA (missing in action) during this whole scam involving the possible misappropriation of our money.
Since Jack Dolan of The Los Angeles Times exposed this abuse of Ratepayer money in September, Bo$$ d’Arcy has refused to cooperate with the Board of Commissioners of our Department of Water and Power and City Controller Ron Galperin. Bo$$ d’Arcy even went to court in January to squash Galperin’s subpoena for the detailed financial records of the two nonprofits, only to be ordered by the Judge Chalfant to hand over the information.
Rather than comply with the court order, Bo$$ d’Arcy has appealed the ruling despite learned speculation that he will be unsuccessful in his efforts to overturn Chalfont’s order.
On Thursday, another legal skirmish broke out when DWP’s two nominees for trustees of the nonprofits, Richard Llewellyn, Legal Counsel to Mayor Garcetti, and Michael Fleming, a DWP Commissioner, sued Bo$$ d’Arcy and asked the court to force Bo$$ d’Arcy to recognize their appointments to the boards of these two nonprofits. This will allow them to monitor the organizations’ expenditures so they can determine whether DWP will continue its $4 million annual contribution.
Throughout the process of trying to get a better understanding how more than $40 million of Ratepayer money was spent, the Ratepayers have yet to see any meaningful efforts or action from the Herb Wesson-led City Council to expose Bo$$ d’Arcy’s cover up and to protect our wallets. But this is not surprising since at least ten members of the City Council have received cash campaign contributions from Bo$$ d’Arcy’s political slush funds.
Yet this is the same City Council that will be asking us to trust City Hall so that we will approve a half cent, $4.5 billion increase in our sales tax designed to finance the poorly planned program to repair of our streets and sidewalks which have been neglected by the same City Council over the last decade.
Yeah, right!
The saga of the missing $40 million will play out over the rest of the year. Bulldog Controller Ron Galperin will continue to demand transparency and accountability. Needed rate increases to fund the repair and maintenance of the Department’s infrastructure will be postponed. Bo$$ d’Arcy will have temper tantrums, especially when the results of the “benchmarking” study are released. He will file multiple grievances to make life miserable for DWP’s management. He may even threaten a walkout or a strike to intimidate the spineless City Council.
History will also repeat itself as “our” City Council will keep its head in the sand, afraid of alienating a generous campaign contributor, symbolizing the corruption and cronyism that has infected City Hall.
(Jack Humphreville writes LA Watchdog for CityWatch. He is the President of the DWP Advocacy Committee, The Ratepayer Advocate for the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, and a Neighborhood Council Budget Advocate. Humphreville is the publisher of the Recycler Classifieds -- www.recycler.com. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Hear Jack every Tuesday morning at 6:20 on McIntyre in the Morning, KABC Radio 790.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 35
Pub: Apr 29, 2014