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Mayor Furey recently unveiled plans to conduct a series of “Torrance Town Halls with the Mayor” over the next few months.  The meetings will be held at various locations throughout Torrance with the intent of providing residents more insight into what is currently “in the works.”

As part of the Council agenda for the meeting to be held tomorrow night, the City Manager is seeking approval from the Council to allow City staff to provide support for these meetings.  How much that additional support will cost taxpayers is not identified.

The first of these meetings is scheduled to be held at North High School on October 27th.

Patrick Furey Jr. has resigned from the Torrance Unified School District (TUSD) Personnel Commission. The news was confirmed via an e-mail by new Deputy Superintendent Dr. Tim Stowe who released an internal memo on the subject.

Furey Jr.’s position on the Commission had come under fire due to his role in a political scandal involving illegal campaign contributions to his father’s 2014 mayoral campaign that led to a $35,000 fine by the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). Furey Jr. served as his father’s campaign manager during that election campaign.

The incident resulted in Furey Jr. stepping down earlier this year from his role on the City’s Traffic Commission just prior to when the Council was to hold a vote on whether to oust him. In his resignation letter, he said that “these sad political attacks on the Mayor and my family are embarrassing our City.”  He also lamented that:

“Now the most extreme elements of our City – people who literally do nothing but complain, make vicious public attacks about people they don’t even know, and write racist and homophobic blogs – call all the shots. Now they can move on to just attacking my father and leave my family out of it.”

Furey Jr. was initially appointed to the Personnel Commission in December 2012. His father had previously served in the same role from 2006 to 2008. Furey Jr. was re-appointed to the position in December 2015 and his current term does not expire until December 2018.

The Commission was established to ensure favoritism and nepotism are kept out of the District’s hiring practices and that employees are hired based only upon demonstrated ability and not on who they know. Furey Jr. was appointed to the Commission by the California School Employees Association (CSEA) Chapter #845.  His mother, Teresa Furey, is still currently listed on CSEA’s website as its First Vice President.

CSEA has 15 days from the day the position became vacant to publicly submit a new name to fulfill the remainder of Furey Jr.’s term.

In a rare public display of discord Councilman Griffiths took issue with Mayor Furey’s appointments to regional boards or agencies at last Tuesday’s meeting. Griffith’s was a notable absentee from the appointment list as all of the other councilmembers, including newly elected Milton Herring, received a nod from the mayor as either a delegate or an alternate on one of the various boards.

Of the apparent snub Griffiths boldly stated:

As can be seen on this item my name is not present.  With all due respect to the mayor’s decision I wanted to share why I will be voting no on this item.  I’ve asked the mayor on multiple occasions over the past two years to appoint me to an outside board or agency and I have received none.  In my opinion, these are important appointments and these appointments should not be politicized.  As you yourself have said mayor, we are a team here and I feel like I am sitting on the sidelines.

Mayor Furey did not directly respond to Griffith’s comments, but did dismissively state that “there are only so many appointments.”  The Council approved the mayor’s appointments by a vote of 6 to 1 with Councilman Griffiths casting the lone dissenting vote. The appointments were as follows: