Yucca Valley,Ca.-Town Manager, Mark Nuaimi, was hired by this rural town of 20,000 residents with an average income of $32,000. He started his first day on July 6, 2010 with a salary of $190,000.00 plus benefits and a $600 car allowance per month. Making no apologizes, he set out to bring a town tax creating additional funds he would spend and could leverage out by bonding, as he did previously in Fontana and Colton.
Nuaimi’s stated he was employed as Assistant City Manager of Colton for 3.75 years. His nick-name, the “Conflict King,” was earned due to his dual role as the Mayor of Fontana, his place of residence even to this day. While holding these two positions, he was defiant claiming he had no Conflict of Interest. The Attorney General had a different view in a letter confirming his Conflict of Interest.
Yucca Valley Town Manager, Nuaimi, in Spending Spree for Two Years
Mayor Dawn Rowe leads inexperienced Yucca Valley Town Council towards fiscal crisis.
Mayor Dawn Rowe Leaves Legacy of Debt >>>Link
When Nuaimi came on the Yucca Valley payroll, the RDA, Redevelopment Agency funds were in his checkbook, albeit designated to remove blight, without any oversight by the State of California. The RDA was recently dissolved and the Department of Finance, DOF, is in charge of winding down the agency.
Let’s review some recent obligations made by our Town Council members these past two years spending more than what is in the Town’s checkbook creating a fiscal crisis and desperate need to pass this General Fund Tax to cover Mayor Rowe’s legacy of debt.
-Nuaimi obligated over $1 million dollars($1,020,000.00) for the General Plan update. Councilmen Chad Mayes and Frank Luckino requested to delay this financial obligation until the town budget was reviewed. Ignoring their requests, Nuaimi proceeded to hire a firm from Costa Mesa stating the payments would be budgeted over a three year period at $300,000.00 each year. Citing personal reasons, our two most experienced councilmen, Mayes and Luckino, later resigned from the Town Council. Nuaimi submitted a payment request to the Department of Finance and it was denied. No contract prior to the cut-off date.
-The Sky Harbor dog park was built with a $250,000.00 internal loan to be paid by future impact fees. The last presentation has this obligation bumped up to $300,000.00. Confident the dissolved Redevelopment Agency would cover this gap, Nuaimi submitted a claim for $250,000.00. The State Department of Finance denied payment of this due to the fact the contract with Doug Wall Construction was earlier this year, well past the cut-off date.
-Two pets were impounded at the Yucca Valley Animal Shelter resulting in spending over $50,000.00 and creating a publicity nightmare for seated Mayor Dawn Rowe. This expense will not be shared by the JPA Animal partnership with the SB County.
-What started out as a new animal shelter has morphed into a “replacement” animal shelter that will not handle any additional pets and will be built using metal buildings. The winning animal shelter design placed shade trees over the septic leach field (a no-no) and now there is no money for other shade structures. Town’s 1/2 obligation is $1.5 million dollars shared with the County of San Bernardino.
-$3o0,000.00 per year was obligated to maintain the Brehm youth sports park submitting a blank lease that neither party agreed to, Nuaimi said they could “make side agreements later.”
-The Splash Park plan to save three years of CDBG, funding of $150,000 annually was grabbed by Nuaimi for a pro-active code enforcement officer. Now the project is lacking funds for the splash element, which was the primary goal.
-$150,000.00 tax dollars spent to promote Measure U-The real insult is our tax dollars spent by the town for consultants, mailers, marketing plus Staff time to promote the passage of Measure U General Fund tax under the guise of “education.” $50,000.00 to Fieldman/Rolapp. $48,000 to Lew Edwards and Associates also authorizing additional $50,000-$75,000 for mailers, surveys, etc. $6,000.00 for ballot preparation. Another $20,000.00 for additional outreach approved on August 7, 2012.
-The Town manager, Mark Nuaimi, has been seen posting Yes Measure U signs along the highway while receiving over $200,000.00 salary/benefits, clearly another Conflict of Interest.
Additionally, Town Staff/Council and their appointees have donated $1,000.00 each for the Yes Measure U Citizen committee for a grand total of $24,000.00 for signs, radio and print ads in an attempt to buy our vote. Story >>>LINK
Now they ask us to trust them with $160 million dollars in tax revenue for the next 30 years?
For these reasons, and there are several others, Vote No on Measure U.
Time Running Out-Mark Nuaimi Needs His Cash FIX...tick-tock, tick-tock....,
great info Margo, all people have to do is go to youtube.com type Mark Nuaimi in search bar and sit back, there’s quite a bit of stuff on how he messed things up elsewhere first, guess those were his practice runs. He must think 3 times a charm, now he knows the right way to bankrupt a town! hehe j/k of course, not. Not only is he a conflict king he’s a “Corrupt Comflict King” Imagine that, time for the king to become a queen or maybe the court jester, seeing as how he likes to put the hurt in peoples lifes and more. one of the signs he put up was blocking the view for on coming traffic on the highway??? you had to be in traffic to see to get out? You think he may or should have noticed the obstruction! Also I would still like to see an itemized list for that $50,000 he spent on the dog issue, how much went in his pocket for making 1 court appearance? For a town manager that couldn’t even handle a dog issue proper, its no wonder everything written by him is a cover my ass story! Respectfully, damndawgers.
Time is not the only thing running out, I presume Nuaimi will be ‘running out’ of town when his pet project is miserably defeated in November, with no further funds for raises, with a bankrupted town, with a record of failure built on deception and unfulfilled promises, he will have to run, and possibly change his name too, the same could be said of his co-horts in council, what a dispicable bunch of back-scratchers and swindlers. Yucca Valley deserves better than the representation they have been afforded for too long now. The diseased and incestuous hiearchy that has ruled the town needs to go, and swiftly, before the town is bankrupted by these self-righteous nar-do-wells.
I follow Cactus Thorns almost religiously. I see plenty of complaints about the local town council, etc… What I DON’T See is people getting involved. My daddy always said- “If you don’t try to do something about it- Quit yer bitchin’!” It really depressed me to see only 1 person challenging the status quo at Hi-desert Water District. It REALLY pissed me off that there is only 1 write-in candidate to run for a seat on town council. Come on, Yucca Valley! Quit yer bitchin’ and DO something!