Janice's Magic Appearance - Griego's Disappearance

Just as I predicted, Tom Griego never came back to the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council. As you will remember, Mr. Griego is an Assistant City Attorney working with the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. Last month he publically rebuked members of the Coastal council/R-1 gang for violating numerous municipal codes.

During the course of last month's meeting it was determined that specific questions would be generated for Mr. Griego to answer at this month's public meeting. As you will recall, I specifically warned people to be careful of the R-1 thugs trying to keep their misdeeds out of the public view. My exact words were, "Watch for their attempt to take these proceedings private into some sort of closed-door "executive" meeting in order to avoid public scrutiny."

My concerns were met with assurances by a CSPNC Board member that such a thing would never happen. I quote:
"... But finally, I have to agree completely with you on one thing: we, too, encourage everyone to come to our next monthly stakeholder meeting on 17 December! I can assure you that we won't be doing a "...closed-door 'executive' meeting to avoid public scrutiny." Not only would that be illegal and unethical, but it would miss the whole point of why the Neighborhood Council exists: to publicly discuss issues of public interest..."
– Dean Pentcheff (CSPNC Board Member) –

I really don't mean to gloat, but in this case can you blame me? Did I call it, or what? There was absolutely no doubt in my mind regarding the lengths these R-1 hooligans would go to in order to cover up the ways in which they broke the law. You can be certain there were a lot more things which occurred than were brought up at last month's meeting.

Nevertheless, just as I wrote in my previous post, this saga is far from over. The fat lady has yet to sing and there are an abundance of ways to bring their actions into the light of day. The ways they attempted to pass off their fraud onto the citizens of San Pedro and Janice Hahn, their elected Councilwoman, will be revealed.

The thing about the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council which probably bothers me the most is the fact they preach the gospel of "transparency" and "accountability" but they really have no intention of honoring either concept. Their goal is secrecy and advancing their own agenda. Anything they can do to accomplish this without the "bother" of public input, they do without as much as batting an eyelash.

You only have to look at a couple things to confirm this. First, and the most visible, is the way they have tried to restrict the definition of "stakeholder" for their district. I could write volumes, but the short version is they want as few people as possible to have any rights when it comes to their group. And even though Mark Wells attempted to turn the phrase into something else, "ranting elitist" is not a compliment. It accurately and succinctly describes the attitude of the Coastal council.

The second manifestation of the Coastal/R-1 gang's attempt to restrict input is to ignore the rules for setting the Agenda of their stakeholder meetings. This goes hand-in-hand with the sorry excuse for records they call "minutes". (Which I have commented on before.) They pick out a few items they feel are innocuous and place them on the Agenda. Everything else is left off. Despite important issues being known about, planned and scheduled. (Lord knows they don't want any of Bisno's crowd showing up to refute any of Coastal's ludicrous assertations.) Instead, they lump everything together under "Public comment on non-agenda items."

What a crock... Perhaps DONE will have something to say about this in the future.

Last night we had the pleasure of our ever gracious Councilwoman, Janice Hahn, attending the monthly stakeholder meeting. Now is it just me, or is it pretty much an accepted reality that her time is limited? Therefore it would stand to reason that her appearance was planned and scheduled. Especially as she had 3 of her staff with her and at least 6 pages of pre-printed, typewritten notes. Even Dan Dixon and John Mavar from the Northwest Council were there. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but wouldn't this indicate some pre-meditation? So why wasn't it on the Agenda?

Councilwoman Hahn addressed the assembly and took questions for about 2 hours. This is not a small amount of time for her in the normal scheme of things, much less just a few days before Christmas. She addressed every subject of interest to residents of San Pedro including TraPac, the police situation, Angels' Gate, Kaiser Point, Ponte Vista, the telephone tax, and many, many more. A very comprehensive overview. A rare insight into the guts of many important issues. So why wasn't it on the Agenda?

It is always a special occasion when we get to hear from our Councilwoman, but especially when we get to ask about any subject we decide we want to get information about. And we get to hear her replies, opinions and positions live and in real-time. I know dozens of people who would have loved to come and hear what she had to say, as was well their right as stakeholders and residents of the 15th Council District. There would have been standing-room-only. So why was it such a secret? So why wasn't it on the Agenda?

The answer is deceptively simple. The Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council does not want community involvement. Despite their disingenuous lies about supporting transparency, in reality they want to fly under-the-radar. They have their own private club led by people from Point Fermin and Palisades and they don't much care what anyone else has to say. They have proven they care not a whit about the law, diverting public monies, subverting their official positions for private gain, conflicts of interest, and who knows what else.

These people are so arrogant and in-your-face they figure they won't/can't get caught. And even if they do, it'll be only a wrist slap (if anything). As I wrote before, these people are so slimy, they could give any professional politician in Sacramento or Washington a run for their money. The more I see, the more I realize how true it is.