Story #1: The Altadena Town Council spent a considerable time at last night's meeting discussing potential ethical conflicts: particularly, some councilmembers have contracts with Pasadena Unified School District. Most pointedly: councilmember Keith "Sarge" Gibbs, who is chair of the council's Education Committee and runs training, intervention, and leadership programs at Blair. Chairman George Lewis said that there had been numerous complaints about Gibbs requesting money for his programs. (Gibbs was not at the meeting). Councilmember Michele Zack (who was also absent) was also named as having a contract with the district.
Lewis said he was going to appoint an ethics committee to look into the matter and come up with rules. In a related issue, several councilmembers had also been listed as endorsing State Assemblyman Anthony Portantino - which they can't do as councilmembers -- but averred that they were endorsing him as individuals, and their titles were used without their knowledge or permission.
Top Story #2: The council approved sending a letter to Supervisor Antonovich requesting that a county grand jury investigate the conduct of Los Angeles County Community Development Commission (CDC), the Los Angeles County Building and Safety department and the developer of Lincoln Crossing.
The decision came after Parviz Aria of Farm Fresh Ranch Market told a long tale of woe about his company's dealings with Lincoln Crossing -- complaints of substandard construction, delays, lawsuits from the developers, etc. Aria said that his company had invested close to $10 million in the supermarket, and they were going to the court of appeal on June 30 to fight an eviction notice from the developer for nonpayment of rent (because they had to legally pay contractors that the developer had not paid).
(A condensed version of the whole Lincoln Crossing story went up today on councilmember Steve Lamb's blog.)
