Steiner Group Part One: Hiding Urban Logic

Kapanicas Contacted Lana Steiner Group to Form Another Dummy Corporation to Hide Money Funneled to Dillon and Moorjani.

By: Libi Uremovic | Original Article at patch.com

The Steiner Group Inquisition went on for 45 minutes, so the full transcript will not fit on the Patch. Below are highlights of the April 7, 2015 Beaumont Council Meeting Transcript.

Part One: Steiner denies working for Urban Logic and claims: “It was Santori Real Estate Solutions that I was working for technically. I was employed by Santori Real Estate Solutions then we were subcontracting to Urban Logic.”

Ms. Steiner is the Principal of Santori Real Estate.

227:00 White: Ms. Steiner; I think my questions would best be answered by you. Your early invoices list Deepak Moorjani and Dave Dillon as doing the work we were paying the Steiner Group for. You mentioned in your letter that you have qualified contract employees. Do those two fall into that?

Stener: Yes they do. As part of the Agreement, or part of the Contract, we are obligated to basically to allow the City to let the City know who the assigned Contractors are that are working for me, absolutely.

White: Your contract also states that you are require to tell us on the Invoices who is doing the work and that seemed to have stopped 5-10 invoices ago, several months ago. And now the invoices come out and there’s nobody’s name listed on the invoices as being the contract employee doing the work.

228:45 Steiner: I don’t recall on the actual invoices if there was ever put down any particular names on them. You might have seen Staff correspondence relating to some of the time cards that we provided. We standardized the process, but the City Staff is fully aware of who the Independent Contractors are and who is working.

White: But the Contract does say that you will indicate who is getting paid for – who is doing the work for those invoices, not necessarily on those invoices. You did it before with a time card from Land Metrics. The question that comes to me when I first start looking at this is probably not a question for you, so I’ll ask it and you can answer it after I finish the other questions.

White: Why do we need to go to the Steiner Group if all the work is being done by Land Metrics? Why wouldn’t we set up Land Metrics to qualify to do the job card work? I think that’s not for you, but more for the Staff to answer. Custom Travel Network; is that a franchise of a larger group?

230:00 Steiner: Custom Travel Network is my husband’s and mine tour operating company. He is a very passionate tour industry professional that has been doing this for 20 years. We’ve incorporated the company in 2013 and he’s smart enough to make me his finance person. So when the request from City Manager, Alan Kapanicas, came in for me to possibly do this job; at that point in time I didn’t have a corporate umbrella to basically … so I filed the DBA under Custom Travel Network, which is just a corporate umbrella company, it has no relevance to the finance work that I’m doing.

White: So if I look at the timing correctly; your DBA – what County did you file that in?

231:00 Steiner: L.A.

White: And you filed a fictitious business name on August 6th in L.A. also. So my question is;

Steiner: Which is the Steiner Group DBA.

White: I didn’t see a DBA, but I saw the fictitious name. Who are your other clients besides the City of Beaumont?

Steiner: Currently, as you can tell, I don’t have a huge list of clients.

White: Do you have any other clients?

Steiner: I have been in the industry for over eight years. I started working with the City Staff in 2008 on the developer side. I was working for one of the best firms in the industry which is commonly referred to as CPFG – Development Planning and Financing Group. You’ve seen the quite a few time here at the City. I was working for the K Hovanian project at Four Seasons and that’s how I was introduced to the professional Staff here at the City.

White: Do you have any other clients right now?

Steiner: From the municipal standpoint?

White: Does the Steiner Group have any other clients besides the City of Beaumont?

Steiner: I just started in August. I took a year 1/2 off to start a family.

White: Does the Steiner Group have any other contract employees besides Deepak Moorjani and Dave Dillion.

Steiner: I have graphic designer who’s working for me.

Orozco: Where you ever employed with Urban Logic Consultants?

Steiner: I was never ‘employed’ by ULC. I did some contracting work for ULC before that.

Orozco: You didn’t list that at all? Did you list that in your resume?

Steiner: No. At that point in time I was actually working under Santori Real Estate, it was my brokerage company, and I did some commercial brokerage work at well as some subcontracting for ULC at that point in time.

Orozco: What kind of work did you do for ULC?

233:25 Steiner: I was working on preparation of the closure reports that they have requested me for the facilities as well.

Orozco: Disclosure reports similar to these?

Steiner: Similar to these. Similar to the reimbursement work, but not exactly.

Orozco: During what time? The reason I’m asking is because it’s not on your resume or references.

Steiner: It was Santori Real Estate Solutions that I was working for technically. I was employed by Santori Real Estate Solutions then we were subcontracting to Urban Logic.

Orozco: During what period?

Steiner: 2009-2010

White: You were approved by Council to start doing job task cards, when was that?

Steiner: August 19, 2014.

White: So two weeks after you filed your DBA and your fictitious business name.

Steiner: Yea but I was qualified.

White: I’m not questioning your qualifications. My is; it still comes back to the transparency issue. Are you related to any of the employees of the City of Beaumont or our Consultants?

Steiner: No.

236:00 Orozco: The whole process, how it went out to the public or how it went out to your firm is questionable to me. Looking at the job cards and the invoices didn’t match. Then looking at your contract brought up more questions and when I asked Staff it was very difficult on their end to kind of answer the questions that were clear enough for me to be comfortable with. In particular with the job cards. I’m uncomfortable and it should be uncomfortable for the rest of the Council. The fact that even for our Staff, when we look at the job cards, the first and foremost thing you see is that you don’t know who’s doing the work. Are you doing the work yourself?

Steiner: Most of it, a lot of it. Not on the job cards. I’m doing all of the work pretty much for the task quarter. I think there is a little bit of a misunderstanding. There’s a contract task order in preparation of the facilities report with the bond expenditures. And to that task order there were two job cards that were issued. And both of them were for; one was for the engineering oversight that mostly dealt with assessment engineering type of work and oversight work only, no civil engineering or any type of fixed work. No planning or designing of any sort. And the other job card was issued for the facilities financing support services.

Orozco: At any point did you offer Beaumont civil engineering services? Did you send an email saying we do this or that?

Steiner: No.

Orozco: Because part of the job card where I was confused, and Staff clarified, when it says engineering it means ‘accounting engineering’.

238:00 Steiner: It’s assessment engineering. Basically, like on your previous discussion on Hidden Canyon work; the cancelations for the approval of dwelling units, for example. That’s the assessments engineering that we’re referring to. But it’s a simple calculation cause you’re not obligated to be a civil engineer in order to perform something like that. This could be done by a Special Tax Consultant. It can be done by Financial Planners. It could be done pretty much by anybody. The only difference is that whoever defines the boundary is responsible for basically knowing the boundary lies within the City. Mapping can be done by any graphic designer.

Orozco: Have you offered or done any work here in Beaumont in regards to formation of CFD’s?

239:00 Steiner: We have support formation of the CFDs, yes. I have personally done it for K Hov. I have personally done it for portions of Tournament Hills. Me personally, so I do have experience.

Orozco: So you’re telling me that you’ve done formation bonds here?

White: Not as Steiner Group but before as ..

239:30 Steiner: As Lana Guseva. Guseva is my maiden name. Here in Beaumont.

Orozco: Under you individually, not as a subcontractor?

Steiner: I worked for a company, DPFG. We were doing developer financing districts. CFD district.

Orozco: They were qualified, not you. You were under their firm.

White: You were their employee, not a subcontractor.

Steiner: I was not a contractor, I was an employee.

240:00 Orozco: You were under their umbrella, their qualifications, their corporation.

Steiner: True.

White: You mentioned that you have done most of the work. Are you a Principal?

Steiner: Yes.

White: Okay, so Principal gets paid $175/hr?

Steiner: No. I charge the City $65/hr for my work, which is a huge savings.

White: That’s where my confusion is because it’s been all $150/hr. $150 is what Mr. Dillon and Mr. Moorjani earn on their hourly rate.

Steiner: Right. They are being billed as Managers and I actually have negotiated them down on the rates as well in order to stay within the $6,000 budget that’s been allocated for that type of work to the City. You understand that $6,000 doesn’t really get you too far. It’s basically two hours per day that they are doing and most of the time they’re actually working a lot more. In all honesty; I have to negotiate them down in order for us to meet that monthly budget that Mr. Kapanicas wanted us to meet on a monthly basis. Your Staff is incredible and sort of stingy at the same time. So they basically made us agree to a certain dollar amount per month, which we did.