Citizen About Town

By Nancy C. Arcuri, Editor and Publisher

E-mail: nancyarcuri@thecitizensvoice.net

Fax: 626-307-9081

This is the speech that I gave during Oral Communications at the Monterey Park City Council Meeting on October 6.  I did not mention Councilmembers Betty Tom Chu, Frank Venti or Mitch Ing by name.

I am a long time subscriber of The San Gabriel Valley Tribune and The Pasadena Star News.   I have cautioned their editor Frank Girardot for letting his staff publish one-sided articles on tips supplied by our Council majority.

Sometimes buried in the scandalous articles will be factual information provided by the victim or a city spokesperson.

Former Police Chief Jones Moy is the latest victim of  their venomous remarks.  The story was published on the front page of both newspapers on September 24 above the fold. On September 27 the Opinion Inflatable Water Slide page of these newspapers treated Jones Moy and our city like we are Bell.  These Councilmembers who once praised Jones Moy for being our first Chinese heritage police chief turned on him because he retired from the city of Monterey Park and filed a workers’ compensation claim.

On September 29 these newspapers published data that nine top city officials are annually accruing up to three months worth of paid leave.  According to the city’s contract with the Department Heads they are entitled to receive all their accrued vacation and sick days at their current pay rate when they leave the city’s employment.

If the Council majority is not happy with this contract they have had four, six and 12 years on the Council to try to amend it.

We do have issues with three of our Councilmembers but we are not like Bell. Unless we find out that our $4 million deficit pointed out by this Council team has not really been reduced to $380,000 as stated in these news articles.

I am sure Jones Moy filed a workers’ compensation claim based on harassment by these three Councilmembers.  Council watchers have seen them in action during public meetings and believe that these actions are worst in private.

Our former police chief is not the only city employee who has been harassed by these Councilmembers.  No wonder they all file for workers’ comp.

This Council majority is continually violating the Brown Act and our personnel policies by their verbal abuse of our staff and degrading our employees at public meetings.

These Councilmembers’ evil actions are coming home to roost. The taxpaying residents will have to bear the legal expenses to defend our hometown.

The Councilmembers being sued will have to pay for their own legal defense because we will not pay to defend them.

The Council majority complained about the $380,000 shortfall. Let’s see the Council spent $200,000 buying a How-To-Book on bring business into the city and $80,000 on an audit of Athens that was pulled off the agenda and never saw the light of day.

This team fired former city manager June Yotsuya because they did not vote to hire her.  One of them harassed her at city hall during the time he was unemployed.  She had a $200,000 severance package built into her contract.

So far I count a $480,000 loss to the city.  I believe that we need to have an outside auditing agency hired to review our books as the $4 million shortfall was reduced to $380,000.

That sound like new math to me.

I got a strong reaction to my speech by the Chu, Venti and Ing team just as I knew I would.

They denied harassing Jones Moy yet these hit pieces were the greatest harassment of all.

People reading the articles or hearing about them reacted strongly to the content.  People who know and respect Jones Moy felt our Council majority deliberate set him up for public ridicule because he collected his accrued sick time and vacation time. His contract with Monterey Park stated that his unused time would be paid out at 100% of his current salary.

People who read these articles and didn’t realize there were hit pieces believed that Jones Moy was as guilty as the Bell city officials.

Mr. Venti said he was sorry that people took the story the wrong way.

Lee Norris of the Police Officers Association, a spokesman for the police rank and file along with 15% of our force attended the meeting. They were on site for the discussion of Item 16 regarding the budget and their 5% pay cut. They were extremely upset about the hit piece on their former police chief. Their morale was low and they expressed it to the Council. They did take a 5% pay cut to help balance the city’s budget. Mr. Norris listed all the losses to the department that included a full time training officer, no community relations’ officer, no permanent chief and detectives working the streets with less time to solve the open cases to reduce overtime.

When the rank and file police officers leave the city’s employment they receive their unused sick time at 50% of its value.  They can sell their unused sick time back to the city at 75% of its value.  Most of the police officers who resign or retire from the city only have two stripes and are paid according to their MOU (union contract).

Betty Tom Chu and Frank Venti verbally attacked our employees.

Mr. Venti said he supports the police officers but scolded them for only taking a 5% pay cut.  He wanted a 10% pay cut for the police officers and to delete the bankable sick leave being paid at the higher pay.  Bankable sick pay should be pro-rated.  A 10% pay cut could have avoided the layoffs of general employees. He wants to change the MOU (union contract).

Mrs. Chu said she did not care that their morale was low. She screamed that she was disappointed in them. She said they still took their raises when the other employees did not. She blamed them for the causing the staff reductions.  Think about all the other departments working with less staff. Council does not have any control over the loss revenues.

Councilmembers Anthony Wong, David Lau and Mitch Ing thanked the police officers for protecting the city.  They make our city one of the safest cities in the San Gabriel Valley to live, work, play and raise your family.

Councilmember Wong stated that the Council is to blame for not bring in more businesses into the city for a higher sales tax base to pay for our city’s services.

Councilmember Ing said they should have caught the vacation pay and sick pay issues stated in the MOUs. They need a legal opinion on the vacation pay and sick pay to see if the pay could be reduced in the future.

Mr. Norris and most of the police offices walked out during Mrs. Chu scolding. They called our Council dysfunctional.

Our employees are correct.  Councilmembers Chu, Venti and Ing have caused a great deal of discord over the years.  The Council Meetings are getting more verbally abusive.  Now Mr. Ing, who is running for re-election in 2011 has decided to cut his losses and teamed up with Councilmembers Wong and Lau in their support of our employees.

Taxpaying residents are concerned that the Chu and Venti team will cause good employees to leave our city when the economic times improve.

I have requested from the city manager that the residents have a budget presentation without any input from the Council.  The figures should be projected on the screen for all to see.  The public watching the meetings do not have access to the staff’s report.

Residents reading the hit pieces on Jones Moy believe the $380,000 loss mentioned in the articles had the decimal point misplaced ($3.80 Million).  After all the Chu, Venti and Ing team were screaming that we were $4 Million in the hole.

Former banker/lawyer Betty Tom Chu keeps throwing out numbers during the monthly budget presentation that confuses the staff and the residents.

It is our money and we have a right to know our true assets and expenses.  A portion of the bi-monthly meetings should be dedicated to explaining the city’s budget to all of us taxpayers.

The majority of Monterey Park’s income is from property taxes with a little sales tax in the mix.

Earlier Councils are to blame for our financial short fall.

In 1948 the Council voted to have a dump established in the south side of town.  In the early 1950s, 1960s and 1970s local business owners and the Council met for coffee at Paris Restaurant. They set policy on restricting the commercial lot sizes to keep out big box stores like Sears that would have competed with their little “Mom and Pop” stores.  This was why the Brown Act was established to keep the meeting fair and open to the public.  In the early 1980s social engineers and Councilmembers decided to create the first Suburban Chinatown in Monterey Park.  Many long timers sold their commercial and residential property to business owners from the Pacific Rim countries.

The new comers did drive up our property values, which helped our property tax base. They also drove up the rents that forced many American businesses out of town.

Now the rents are over-priced and many American businesses are not will to gamble on opening businesses in an area where they may not make the bottom line.

Monterey Park residents shop out of town in American stores with people of all nationalities so stores in the San Gabriel Valley can meet their bottom line.

Monterey Park’s other issue is small commercial sites that are not beneficial to large chain stores.  A developer has to collect the small lots for a large parcel of land for construction of a good size building to house American stores.

Yes we can blame generations of Councilmembers for our financial woes.

We will have to work as a team to correct the past mistakes of our city if we want to succeed in the future.

Please vote on Election Day, November 2!  Thank a veteran on Veteran’s Day, November 11!

Generations of men and women have fought and sacrificed for us to enjoy a free country. Honor their memory by voting on Election Day!