When it rains it pours. Compton city hall is under attack and quite possibly by a former, disgruntled employee. The world was apprised of the city treasurers and controllers office failure to have internal controls over taxpayers money and the continuance of operating outside of the publics view. City employees are now reporting the IT department also has some explaining to do. Should businesses and residents be concerned about a breech of their financial data? Finance employees tell 2 Urban Girls they have been locked out of their finance software since the arrest of a colleague in the treasurers department.
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Issues with the finance department’s handling of taxpayer dollars dates back to the Bradley administration. Sources close to the ongoing Bradley case state admissions were made under oath about improprieties in how the treasurer’s office handled cash.
Former Compton city clerk, Charles Davis, who is the longest-serving elected official in the city, at one time was the owner of record of “First Choice Travel”. While serving as clerk, Davis arranged the travel for Compton elected officials through his agency.
Court transcripts are said to reflect an admission that the travel was paid in cash by the city treasurer. No records exist of the transactions and city council agendas posted on the city’s website, only date back to 2008. This has been a serious thorn in the side of the district attorney’s office since much of the testimony hinges on evidence submitted by Davis & Sanders.
The city clerk’s office has boxes of files that have not been microfiched or cataloged, which becomes troublesome when making public records requests and seeking historical data of transactions.
Related: Attorney, Clerk and Treasurer: Compton Candidates Forum Review
This notion was corroborated decades later when Mayor Aja Brown shared with LA Times “the city is unaware of how long the money has been embezzled or exactly how much was taken”. This coincides with the continued lack of disclosure of check warrants on the regular city council agendas. No one has any idea how much money is leaving out of 205 S. Willowbrook Ave. and to whom it is going.
Related: Residents remain in the dark over city’s finances
The city has is said to have retained auditing firm, Vasquez & Co LLP, to audit the books but two huge problems exist.
One, the city didn’t put the auditing services out to bid so who authorized their services?
Two, it was confirmed by the City Clerk’s office and treasurer employees, that the Finance department server was hijacked, mysteriously the day after Sheriff’s deputies hauled Salvador Galvan out of city hall and is being held ransom for an undisclosed sum. City Hall insiders allege the culprit is a recently fired employee who never had their credentials deleted from the system. If so, they have yet to be caught and/or identified.
City Hall maintains the deputy city treasurer admitted to the theft and if that’s correct, should the city be suing EVERY auditor, for the entire duration of Galvan’s employment, for failure to discover the theft?
City of Pasadena has filed a lawsuit against auditing firm, Hoffman Meyer when an employee embezzled millions from the Public Works department.
Related: Pasadena is taking its auditors to court for not catching $6.4 million embezzlement
Residents are whispering about possible collusion between the former city clerk and current city treasurer.
The revolving door of city controllers is dizzying, which leaves only ONE consistent person handling the city’s money, for the last two decades, which is city treasurer Douglas Sanders.
Salvador Galvan will appear in a Compton courtroom December 30 to answer charges.
3 Comments
Time to clean house! People in leadership roles are just collecting a paycheck, doing whatever they like and many do not live in this city. I blame the leadership (very poor representation) and those who have no clue in how to put this city on current footing. Employees are not coming to work, city attorney just getting his paycheck, council people just supplementing their income, mayor-non functioning, on and on. It is time to regroup and stop voting for people just because they are our friends but have no LEADERSHIP SKILLS!
Charles Davis told the citizens not to vote for the water initiative.. Not understanding the impact, they did; he would communicate with the citizens.
We need coutside auditing and get rid of all (employees and leaders) who can’t and won’t function!!!
Just let the city go bankrupt!!!
The city never paid cash for any business with first choice travel agency. I have only spoken with Sanders maybe 13 times since 2003 (13 years),and those times were just basic greetings. Is this Bradley trying to rewrite history. There was full disclosure during both of his trials regarding my travel agency and the courts found no issues. Whatever problems the city has going at this time has nothing to do with me, and just maybe had I been elected to the city council things might be different. Happy holidays to all???
The Bradley family will not entertain the words of Charles Davis, whom somehow was reelected time and again. With Alita Godwin, his years long #2 becoming city clerk it’s clear that the only one running city government is Charles Davis. He alone has played king maker, orchestrating the election of Eric Perodin and later Aja Brown. It was you Charles Davis that said the council is going to jail even before they had credit cards. It was you that told the stooge Doug Sanders to open up the credit card statements of which was a violation of his office. No Mr. Davis, you destroyed the city by walking in the last two administrations. There is no way Doug Sanders alone would open credit card statements but not know that his number two guy was stealing. You never cared for my father but you knew that he knew his job. I promise the Bradley blame game will not work this time, the city is awake after its long nap! The eyes are no longer close and the people are starting to understand that we were right all along. You allowed the poison in. Only you have or rather had control of the ballots, ballot boxes, and voting machines! Only you had the keys to comptons future. So when the practice voting took place at Our Lady of Victory, Eric’s church then the ballots went across the street to the VFW a CPD strong hold, there was no way we would find them. You destroyed Compton Mr. Davis, history will never be rewritten, but it will be corrected. You are the Boogie Man.