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.)
michele Zack said…
Re: Council looks at own ethics story on Wednesday: I’d like to make clear that yes, I work with PUSD on the federal Teaching American History grant; yes, I’ve announced this in public innumerable times (including at Altadena Town Council meetings); and yes, it is a wonderful professional development program for our teachers of U.S. history. Through it, they are brought into contact with many top historians at programs at the Huntington Library and elsewhere.
Most recently, we held a two-day workshop at the Pasadena Museum of History about the desegregation of PUSD (mentioned in Larry Wilson’s Star News column June 4th) called “Civil Rights and the City of Roses”. Among our speakers was Robin Kelley, pre-eminant scholar of black and ethnic studies; history makers such as Jim Spangler, lead plaintiff in Spangler v Pasadena Board of Education and former PUSD School Board Members Albert Lowe and Marge Wyatt; and Bill Deverell, Director of the Huntington and USC Instistute for California and the West. I also gave a talk about “The Three Communities of PUSD” as my role in this program is to help make the connection between the big themes (such as the Civil Rights Movement) and the local history of Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre.
For the record, my contract with PUSD is entirely paid with federal funds (yes, I’ve been involved in writing grants bringing in extra money for our schools — above and beyond the amount PUSD receives from the state).
The additional money brought in for such enrichment programs is more important now than ever, with all the cuts in education in our state budget. The Teaching American History Program helps to retain good teachers — a crucial element in bringing excellence to our schools and students.
I do not sit on the Council’s Education Committee, and cannot think of a vote that has ever come up that in any way presented an ethical conflict. We need more involved citizens working together to solve local problems and to make Altadena a better place to live and to be educated. Let’s focus on this important work, and not get distracted.
Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 10:34 PM