Torrance City Council – A Town Hall Style Conversation About Local Politics

Last Monday the School Board approved an annual budget of $505,895 for the School Board Personnel Commission. The Personnel Commission has come under increased scrutiny after a recent political scandal involving the mayor and his son that ultimately led to Patrick Furey, Jr. resigning his post from the City’s Traffic Commission. Furey, Jr., however, has thus far maintained his current position on the School Board Personnel Commission as School Board members have declined to take any action on the subject.

The $505,895 budget is an increase from the $482,227 approved in the prior year with staff salary increases accounting for the bulk of the difference.  School Board member Don Lee justified the pay increases by saying, “We’ve been giving anywhere from a 3% to 4% raise to our employees over the last few years.”

The Personnel Commission meets once a month and has a four person staff that includes one Director, two Personnel Analysts, and one Personnel Specialist. Per the approved budget, the Director’s salary increased from $107,940 per year to $113,693 or approximately 5.3%.  This increase came on top of a 6.4% increase the Director received in the prior year.  The salaries for the rest of the staff increased from $176,955 to $193,550 or approximately 9.4%.  The budget also allocates $122,042 for employee benefits and $49,497 for operating expenses.

The question of whether the Personnel Commission should be terminated has previously come before the voters with Measure X in 2005.  Interestingly, that vote occurred just prior to when now Mayor Furey was appointed in 2006 to the same Personnel Commission on which his son now serves.

Proponents of the initiative to terminate the Commission argued at the time that Measure X would “return the entire $318,000 annual budget of the Personnel Commission to the General Fund for more pressing needs,” and that it would “impose cost-effective realignment of personnel services and eliminate redundancy and waste making personnel operations more efficient.”

Proponents also claimed that eliminating the Commission would not abolish hiring safeguards as the Board is “legally required to implement rules and regulations to ensure fair hiring practices” irregardless of whether the Personnel Commission exists.

Opponents of Measure X argued that the Personnel Commission “protects the taxpayer’s interests by ensuring that employees are hired based only upon demonstrated knowledge, skills, and abilities and not on who they know,” and that it was needed to “ensure qualified employees are hired and treated fairly and favoritism and nepotism are kept out.”

School Board member Mark Steffens echoed those sentiments Monday night by referring to the issue as a “red herring” and stating that the Personnel Commission was established “so a Board like this cannot get involved in political decisions on people’s jobs.”

Measure X failed by a vote of 41.64% in favor and 58.36% against.

Taxpayer and concerned resident Jim McGee scored a key legal victory in his quest to return $109 Million to Torrance schools after the Second District Court of Appeals recently ruled in McGee’s favor. McGee is the lead plaintiff in ongoing litigation against Balfour Beatty Construction (BBC) alleging many of the contracts entered into between Torrance Unified School District (TUSD) and Balfour Beatty Construction (BBC) are illegal due to a conflict of interest.

According to the lawsuit, TUSD hired BBC to act as the District’s construction consultant/manager.  In that role, BBC acted as an agent for the District and developed the scope, determined the requirements, and set the budgets/schedules for the bond projects. BBC also helped the District pass the bond measures by funneling thousands of dollars into the campaigns.  Once the bonds were passed, the District awarded construction contracts to BBC without soliciting competitive bids using a form of contracting dubbed lease-leaseback.

In an effort to kill the litigation, attorneys for BBC and TUSD had argued that McGee lacked standing to bring the lawsuit. Ironically, the logic behind the argument was that any lawsuit challenging the legality of the contracts should have been brought by the TUSD School Board and not a taxpayer representative. The Second District Court of Appeals affirmed, however, that McGee has legal standing to challenge the contracts.  The Court also affirmed that the conflict of interest claim is a valid cause of action thereby allowing the suit to move forward.

The decision is similar to one meted out last year by the Fifth District Court of Appeals. That decision prompted BBC to halt construction on Torrance schools last summer. In light of the favorable ruling on McGee’s behalf, TUSD is facing renewed calls to cease opposing taxpayer efforts to recover the $109 Million in funds.  TUSD has not disclosed to the public how much money it has spent fighting the recovery of these funds, but one Bond Oversight Committee member has confirmed that the District is using bond money to pay for the legal costs.

The recovery of the $109 Million to Torrance schools is also threatened by powerful interest groups that are lobbying the state legislature to amend the law in order to remove any liability they may have incurred due to these illegal contracts. One such effort, Assembly Bill 978, was rejected last year.  Another, AB 2316, is set to be heard by the Assembly Education Committee this Wednesday, May 4, 2016 at 1:30 p.m.

At least one group has established a website requesting people e-mail, call, or tweet members of the Education Committee urging them to “Let the committee members know that you won’t stand for this corrupt, back-room deal to let people, who knew they were violating the law, off the hook.”

The USBA billed the event as a night where you could ask the questions nobody has allowed you to ask.  As advertised, the candidates did field a smattering of questions they are unlikely to receive at other local forums on topics such United Nations Agenda 21, climate change, and the current business license fee structure.

Unlike other candidate forums, the USBA also promised to offer more of a debate with candidates given the freedom to refer to other candidates positions and rebut arguments. With few exceptions, however, the candidates did not take the bait as they mostly stuck to safe talking points and non-committal responses; thereby offering few diverging viewpoints.

When asked if they supported implementing UN Agenda 21 mandates within Torrance, Rizzo said Agenda 21 had no application to local politics. Eng echoed that sentiment by saying the agenda was very far removed from the City.  Griffiths turned it on the residents by saying he would try and support what the residents wanted. Herring deflected the question by stating the need to maintain a balanced approach while Sheikh focused his response on improving traffic in Torrance.

With regard to allocating funding for climate change initiatives, Griffiths and Rizzo both advocated for moving forward with a balanced approach that would not put our businesses at a competitive disadvantage. Eng suggested incremental initiatives such as bike lanes and more public transit routes.  Eng also took the opportunity to take a stab at ExxonMobil for funding climate change deniers as far back as the 1970’s, which is something he referred to as hypocrisy.  Sheikh said climate change is a big concern and that he was doing his part by using recyclable bags to promote his campaign instead of sending out a bunch of mailers. Herring dodged the question entirely by simply saying he was for maintaining property values and keeping the same tax rate.

Concerning business licenses, the moderator referred to a study by the USBA concluding that Torrance is one of the most expensive cities in the South Bay in which to do business and that business license fees are four times higher in Torrance.  On this issue, all the candidates seemed to support a review of the business fee structure. Herring, however, suggested a flat yearly fee of $99 for all businesses with less than 5 employees.  Eng said small business fees should be waived for the first year, but suggested that fees for subsequent years be based on the number of employees or a percentage of revenue. Griffiths mildly clashed with Eng on that point as he was adamant that fees for small business should not be based on revenue as he felt that would be punitive to small business.

Eng and Griffiths also sparred on the City’s response to the refinery start-up and whether they agreed with Mayor Furey’s recent assertion that there was nothing the City could do to address resident concerns expressed by groups such as FLARE.  Eng criticized the City saying they had “dropped the ball” on this one.  He called for the City to establish a refinery commission and to pursue using public nuisance laws to take action against ExxonMobil. Griffiths said the notion that the City has done nothing is inaccurate citing a lot of work they had done behind the scenes.  Griffiths also expressed the need to rely on the experts.

Eng also differentiated himself from the other candidates by being the only one to come out in favor of the $15 minimum wage as a good way to move forward. Griffiths said he was opposed to the government setting wages and said that if a person does not like what they are paid then they should quit their job and find another one. Rizzo echoed that by saying he was not a big fan of it and he felt like government was trying to legislate a middle class. Herring expressed concerns about how it would impact small businesses and said he would not advocate for any minimum wage increases. Sheikh took a softer approach saying he would like to tweak the law, but did not offer what tweaks he would like to see.

In responding to other questions, all the candidates agreed that Torrance is behind the technology curve and supported technology initiatives like the forthcoming updated website and possible development of mobile apps to report concerns like potholes. The candidates also all agreed that Torrance’s water is safe to drink and that the increased sightings of coyotes are a concern.

Candidate Leilani Kimmel Dagastino was a notable absentee from the forum.  She wrote on Facebook that she was, “sorry I could not make it to the debate but I was in Washington DC advocating for small business and other programs benefiting Torrance.”

Dagastino traveled  to Washington DC as part of the LA Area Chamber of Commerce’s Access Washington advocacy trip. The advocacy trip was open to any individual willing to make travel arrangements and pay the registration fee of $850.

According to the LA Area Chamber of Commerce, delegates on the trip were to advocate for the LA region by focusing on priorities including LA’s 2024 Olympic bid, the Trans Pacific Partnership, developing a 21st Century workforce, and immigration reform.

With regard to her experience Dagastino wrote, “Access Washington 2016. We made things happen. I was the only one representing Torrance.”