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September 12, 2024
By Brian Hews
A Los Cerritos Community Newspaper investigation has found some Central Basin (CB) Directors, after they illegally voted to put Dr. Alex Rojas on paid leave and appointed attorney Victor Ponto as acting CB General Manager, immediately began taking more in payments to attend meetings; the blatant misuse of public funds is costing CB rate-payers thousands every month.
The vote to put Rojas on leave violated his employment contract and the Water Code, with Ponto allowing the vote that ultimately put him in charge of the water agency.
The revelation comes on the heels of an LCCN article that showed CB’s cash on hand had plunged $3.4 million to $10 million-34 percent-since Rojas was put on leave and Ponto was put in charge.
According to CB’s Demand List – a listing of checks written to vendors – since February 2024, appointed Director Juan Garza, who is a loyal ally of Ponto, cashed the biggest checks, taking $2,656 in Feb; $3,246 in March; $2,655 in April; $4,722 in May and $1,475 in June for a total of $14,754 for five months for attending meetings.
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A sample of the demand list.
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Garza also took a monthly car allowance of $397, a total of $1,985, and $200 for his cell phone, a total of $1,000. All told, Garza took $17,739 in five months for meetings, car, and cell phone, averaging $3,500 per month.
And that is not all the public agency money Garza is taking; he cashes a $5,000 check every month as the Executive Director for California Cities for Self-Reliance-JPA, a consortium of five L.A. County cities that advocate for cardrooms within their city boundaries.
Garza’s nearly $18,000 in payments was $6,000 more than the next closest Director, Martha Camacho Rodriguez.
Like Garza, Camacho-Rodriguez, who is running to retain her seat in November while also running for a Trustee seat at Cerritos College, saw her meeting payments skyrocket after Ponto took over.
Camacho-Rodriguez totaled only $323 in Feb, but for the next four months, she was paid $1,399 in March, $1,632 in April, $3,497 in May, and $2,097 in June for a total of $8,858 for five months.
Camacho-Rodriguez also took a monthly car and cell phone allowance like Garza. All told, she took $11,843 in five months for meetings, car, and cell phone averaging $2,400 monthly.
Next up was Director Leticia Vazquez-Wilson, who took $659 in Feb., $3,264 in March, $1,399 in April, $1,500 in May, and $2,000 in June for $11,800, including allowances.
Sponging off the public doll-
It is an unwritten rule and a professional courtesy that appointed CB Directors refrain from taking payments for meetings because they work for other public agencies.
Current appointed Director Jim Crawford, who is the District Manager at California Water Service Company does not take payments to attend CB meetings.
The same cannot be said for former Director Michael Gualtieri, who was paid by La Habra Heights Water while he was at CB, and Thomas Bekele, who was paid as the Director of Public Works the city of Signal Hill.
Like Garza and Camacho-Rodriguez, payments to Gualtieri and Bekele rose after Ponto became GM.
With one foot out the door (he retired in June), Gualtieri cashed checks of $1,770 in Feb, $3,246 in March; $1,180 in April and $1,180 in May for a total of $7,376. A public records request by LCCN in 2023 showed Gualtieri earned $190,000 annually from LHHW.
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March Demand List showing Gualtieri taking $3,246.
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Bekele cashed checks of $295 in Feb, $590 in March; $885 in April. After saying he was resigning in April, Bekele took $2,066 in May for a total of $3,836 for five months. As shown in compensation records provided by Signal Hill to Transparent California ,Bekele earned $165,000 in 2022.
There are questions on the legality of the payments, the two could be double dipping, under AB 1794.
CB President Art Chacon, who has been with the agency for 19 years, took the lowest amount, $6,400 in meetings, and the same $2,985 in car-cell allowance for a total of $9,442. That is $8,200 less than the highest amount taken by Director Juan Garza.
When contacted by LCCN, Garza spewed libelous and defamatory remarks, “This is a completely flawed and cherry-picked point you are attempting to make. There’s no baseline, no prior evidence nor trends, no outline on the legitimacy of the meetings and figures that go into this flawed email and document from you.
“In addition, it’s evident that this information and argument is being made by someone else thru [sic] you. I hope you’re aware that when all these matters are looked into more and investigated, your [sic] being a potential accessory to all this could make you a party to it all.”
When presented with the documents obtained by this writer, Garza wrote, “This is useless. An accounting of expenses undertaken by the District. They’re all validated and expected expenses, per our budget.”
When asked about Garza’s comment, CB President Art Chacon told LCCN, “Directors are allowed ten monthly meetings, period. That was implemented after the [2015] state audit mandated only ten meetings. These findings are interesting, to say the least, and they all happened after Alex [Rojas]was placed on leave, with Directors Rodriguez and Garza illegally voting to put Alex on leave, since then the agency has become an ATM for some directors.”
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