Updated July 25,  7:59 pm (see below) 

ISSUE ONE- 

Haughty RSG consultant, Matt McCleary, as customary was perched on his city staff seat last night behind his official name plate, alongside him sat bad legal advice City Attorney A. Patrick Munoz  (I can say because truth is an absolute defense to libel per se). Next to him sat City Manager, Lord Richard, who has difficulty following directives from the City Council.

McCleary began to pontificate and dispense legal advice to the City Council — even though he’s not an attorney — about how the City can keep funds that are requirement to be pay back to Department of Finance (DoF). McCleary alluded to how other cities are fighting to do this. Of course McCleary failed miserably to cite any DoF precedents,  statutory regulations or case law to back-up his bullshit.

FACT: Those other cities have lost their claim at every lame maneuver by people like McCleary and Munoz in the Sacramento County Superior Court where they all must be heard.

As Dan posted in Cactus Thorns early morning neither McCleary nor Munoz addressed the July 12th letter by DoF saying it is over. In said letter, the DoF notified the city that its decisions “will remain final, adding “we are no longer accepting requests to reconsider denied items.” The DoF even took it a step further to make perfectly clear that “any and all revised ROPS submitted to Finance…are hereby rejected.”

Do City Council Members Mayor Cole, Councilmen Mintz or Joel Klink comprehend this? Note that the city must exhaust all its administrative remedies with the DoF before it can pursue a legal challenge in court. Is this what staff rogues are up to?

ISSUE TWO

Steve Spear wrote that the City Manager was using the city’s 1.7 reserves to balance the budget again when he was told no. Further, the budget under discussion last night included an over one third of a million dollar Luckie Park Splash Pad when the council in June told him to purge it from the Budget. Last night Warne said he crossed it out even though he put it in.

ISSUE THREE

Meantime, the Oversight Committee continues to sit on their hands. No meetings; just silence. However, one source reports that the Oversight Board has responded to allegations of a conflict of interest concerning Board member Korina Cole.

Mayor John Cole, Oversight Board’s Chairperson, is the father-in-law of Korina Cole. Kornia is married to Kevin Cole. Kevin is a high-ranking former city of 29 Palms official and now high ranking city employee.

Further, none of the Coles disclosed their close families ties at a city council meeting nor did Korina disclose it to the Hi-Desert Medical Center who appointed her to represent their interest of the lions share of old rda Project Phoenix funds.

Rather, Korina Cole is backing daddy-in law Mayor Cole’s play, who is backing the play of the tightly-knit phalanx consisting of City Attorney Munoz, Lord Richard, RSG McCleary.

Doesn’t this all sound like a comedy of errors production you’d pay to see at Theatre 29?

For more interesting details on this city council meeting , goto this Desert Trail story by Rebecca Unger