Inglewood Council To Dismiss a High Ranking Employee

Inglewood Mayor James Butts must have forgot how he was elected as our mayor back in 2011. In his own words, he campaigned on a premise that “residents balked at paying consultants high salaries”. He and the council are set to increase a contract, on the February 26th council agenda, for four consulting companies, one of which was found to be over billing the Central Basin Water District.

Agreement 17-535 seeks to pay $8 million, over four years, to four consulting companies: Terry Hayes & Associates, Environmental Science Associates Services, Rincon Associates Inc. and Pacifica Services.

Mayor Butts shared with 2UrbanGirls that he usually rises daily at 3:00AM to read the daily news. It comes as a shock to this author he didn’t read about the over billing fiasco involving Pacifica Services.

Related: Troubled Central Basin Water District settles overbilling lawsuit

According to the Los Angeles Times, water district officials claimed Pacifica continued to improperly bill them even though they did not extend their contract with the company.

According to the settlement agreement, the public water agency plans to pay Pacifica $875,000 for unpaid invoices, attorney’s fees and other litigation costs.

Additionally, the water district acknowledged that it shouldn’t have made assertions of fraud or misrepresentation against Pacifica in its original July 2013 lawsuit. The district withdrew the claims that August.

Despite signing a contract with Cypress Security Company, for security services at the city libraries and city hall beginning January 2, 2019, the former security company, Alltech Industries, is also being paid for “transitional” security services through December 31, 2019.

Kudos to the city’s Human Resources department, for increasing the education reimbursement amount for city employees. An employee in the city’s purchasing department received a $2,000 reimbursement for their education which is a smart investment for the growing city.

City employees continue to incur debt under the city’s payday loan program with BMG Money Inc. as payroll deductions have increased over $1000.

The city is attempting to get current on their trash bill sending out nearly $2 million to consolidated waste for pickup services for December and January.

2UrbanGirls submitted a public records request pertaining to the monthly $5,000 payments to Courtney Torres Consulting, yet the city is unable to produce a copy of her contract until early March.

Finally, the city’s first order of business is to have a closed session discussion regarding the possible dismissal of a presumably high ranking city employee. Who crossed Mayor Butts?