On March 1, 2016 the City of Beaumont Issued a Legislative Subpoena to compel Bond Trustee Union Bank to release all documents and correspondence. Download Subpoena document (PDF).
The Subpoena defined ‘Documents’ and ‘Communication’ and clearly stated: “Produce any and ALL DOCUMENTS, including but not limited to requisitions, COMMUNICATIONS, internal memos, emails, books, records, invoices, cover sheets, and electronic fund wiring confirmations evidencing payments from bond fund trust accounts held by MUFG Union Bank in connection with the following bonds issued by the City of Beaumont, Beaumont Finance Authority, and/or Beaumont CFD 93-1”
Below is the Transcript from the March 15, 2016 Beaumont Council Meeting where City Attorney Pinkney dictates a series of events that center around Union Bank’s incompetence in maintaining Municipal Bond Fund Accounts and the allowance of outsiders to bring electronic equipment into their Bank.
Pinkney states that Union Bank released 14,000 to 15,000 pages of documents. The City of Beaumont’s Bond Fund Accounts generate 900 to 1,000 pages of documents every month, which doesn’t include Requisitions submitted by the City.
Pinkney clearly states that he distributed a copy of the Documents received from Union Bank to Judy Bingham, but the documents on the thumb drive were nothing more than the City’s jumbled mess of Requisitions.
Download documents set 1 ‘Combined Terminated’ zip compressed file or PDF doc (warning large file 221MB)
Download documents set 2 ‘Combined Active’ zip compressed file or PDF doc (warning large file 330MB).
The Subpoena was Served, but the Process Server’s Notes state: ” “Union Bank Vice President of Trust Nabeel Badawi stated that he was told not to accept the subpoena and that he was not going to touch the documents.” Download Process Server document (PDF).
It is unknown if Union Bank refused to release the Mello Roos Bond Documents or if Beaumont Staff and Council actually received Union Bank Documents and destroyed Government Documents AGAIN.
Pinkney also goes into great detail about his Law Firm reviewed and redacted the documents, but these documents were redacted last summer by Beaumont Staff. It is obvious that Pinkney plans to forge an Invoice to charge the City for work he and his Law Firm did not perform.
Beaumont City Council Transcript March 15, 2016
30:30 Mayor Lara: Item #4, Action Item, Public Hearing Request Item A
Update and possible legal action regarding production of Bond Reconciliation Documents by Union Bank pursuant to Legislative Subpoena issued on March 1, 2016.
City Attorney Pinkney: As part of the City Council Investigation and Reconciliation of prior use of bond funds; on March 1 [2016] the Council voted to issue Subpoenas authorizing the Mayor to execute Subpoenas directed at Union Bank compelling production of Bond Requisition Documents. The Subpoena was signed by the Mayor that evening and the subpoena was then sent out for Service the next morning and was actually Served on Union Bank the very next morning after the Council Meeting.
31:00 Pinkney: Once Union Bank received the Subpoena the matter was assigned to a Senior Attorney at Union Bank by the name of Joe Catalano. He contacted me in response to the Subpoena and he made it very clear from the outset that Union Bank would comply with the Subpoena and Mr. Catalano cooperated in producing the documents that were identified in the Subpoena issued by this Council.
Mr. Catalano indicated that they had some documents and other documents would have to be pulled from storage and that it was going to take upwards of six weeks for the Bank to pull the documents, review them, copy them, and then produce them and of course the City would be responsible for paying the cost of the coping.
32:00 Pinkney: So we discussed an alternative approach that we recommended, which was to have a Copy Service go to Union Bank’s Offices in Downtown Los Angeles and have Union Bank just bring the documents in and have our Copy Service go ahead and scan the documents digitally right there in their Offices. And by doing that we were able to significantly expedite the production of the Records. The Copy Service went to Union Bank’s Offices on March 9th and 10th and they scanned the Documents that were provided by Union Bank; it was approximately nine (9) boxes. We did not make hard copies, we only made digital copies. The files on a thumb drive were delivered to us in digital form on Friday of last week.
33:00 Pinkney: It was somewhere between 14,000 and 15,000 pages of documents that were produced by Union Bank. These documents contain confidential Account Numbers; people’s account numbers, companies’ account numbers and so the responsible thing to do is to go in and remove those or redact those account numbers. So we had to review all 14-15,000 pages of documents since last Friday. We’ve done it as quickly as we possibly could and we converted them to a searchable format, so we went through a redacted all of the account numbers. There were some tax ID numbers that we also redacted. Then we downloaded it onto thumb drives.
34:00 Pinkney: Today I sent out a copy of the thumb drive to Union Bank. They had requested a copy of what we had digitally imaged by our Copier Service, so that was sent out to them. Ms. Bingham has been waiting for quite some time on production of these Documents in response to her Public Records Act Request, so I wanted to expedite getting those documents to her, so this evening before the Council Meeting I did provide to her a thumb drive of the documents in a searchable format.
34:35 Pinkney: There were some Invoices from Aklufi and Wysocki and it was probably about 1/2 inch thick. I have not reviewed them, but they contained descriptions of the work that was done. I don’t know if that work was done for the City or done for somebody else, but I did pull the legal bills. I’m going to redact the time entries, which are privileged, and then we’ll produce those separately and that’s about 1/2 inch of documents.
35:15 Pinkney: But since last Friday there just wasn’t enough time go through all 15,000 pages. I think had we given this task to the City Staff with the workload that they already have, trying to fit that in between doing their regular job, it would have taken weeks and weeks if not longer. They would have had to print the documents out, redacted them as we did before, and then scan them back in the system to produce them digitally. So we, the approach that we took was very fast and it was probably the most expeditious way to get these documents completed. The City Manager has a copy of the file and so those documents will be made available publicly. The Press Enterprise has asked for a copy of the documents so I’m going to go ahead and send it to them as well so they have a copy. They made a Public Records Act Request as well.
36:15 Pinkney: We have that task completed and we will provide a copy of those Documents to Urban Futures as part of your investigation on how bond funds were used. You’ve hired Urban Futures to perform a reconciliation and these documents were critical to them in their reconciliation process, they couldn’t finish their review and report until they had these documents, so they now have them.