Beaumont Councilmen Responses to Grand Jury’s CFD Report

Carroll Defended Council’s actions by Claiming they Reduced the Amount of CFD Bonds to be Paid by Homeowners by Millions of Dollars.

The problem in Beaumont has never been lack of illegal government activity as numerous government Investigative & Regulatory Agencies have verified; the problem has always been and still continues to be that the City Council protects and defends their staffs’ illegal government activity.The 2018/2019 Riverside Grand Jury released a Report titled: “Community Facilities District Bond Funding in Riverside County Perpetual Debt Under CFD and Service Area Taxes.”

Although the Report does have some inaccuracies, it does a good job of describing the Developers’ and City Council Members’ illegal activity.

The Report uses terms like ‘Fraud’, ‘Deceit’, and ‘Conspiracy to Mislead’, but that doesn’t stop the Beaumont City Councilmen with their campaign to defraud, deceit, and conspire to mislead the public.

In the July 26, 2019 Record Gazette, Beaumont City Councilman Nancy Carroll listed a slew of excuses/denials.

At the July 2nd Council Meeting Lloyd White called the Grand Jury Report ‘praise’.

At that same meeting former City Councilman Roger Berg defended the hiring of Urban Logic Consultants.

What is wrong with these people? I’m asking.

Judge Chaffee WRCOG TUMF Judgement: ‘Fraud by Clear and Convincing Evidence”.

From the State Controllers’ Investigative Report Dated November 3, 2015: ‘It is difficult to understand how the City Councilmen could Approve the actions of their Staff.’

S.E.C. Cease & Desist Order: ‘Stop Forging Government Documents in order to Defraud Banking Institutions’.

From the Record Gazette dated ;

“Beaumont Council member Nancy Carroll said that the council received the 400-page report on July 1. Carroll described it as a ‘civil grand jury report’.

She did not believe that it was up to the standards of past grand jury reports. “This one was factually inaccurate with many misconceptions” according to Carroll.

She said that the current city council did not create the 93-1 CFD (the all-encompassing CFD) that began under Kapanicas’ term as city manager in the mid-1990’s.

She said she did not believe the report was well written.

Carroll defended Beaumont and the City council by saying they have reduced the amount of CFD bonds to be paid by homeowners by millions of dollars.

Carroll said that the council was aware of the inquiry by the grand jury.”

From the July 2, 2019 Beaumont City Council Meeting:

1:47:30: Lloyd White: The Grand Jury Report came out and it actually praised the work we’ve done here. It talks about, in the beginning, about all the ways to do CFDs wrong, which is all the ways they were being done wrong. And then it talks in the ending about all the things that we need to do or that Cities should do to do it right. And that’s all the things that we’ve done and all the things that we’re doing.

1:48:00: Lloyd White: Some people may look at it differently. I look at it as a plus. But I do want to bring up one thing. There was a comment in there about the proper disclosure that Realtors and sales people will give people looking to buy ‘our houses’. I really would like to suggest that we hold a maybe an annual luncheon for Realtors to discuss what’s going on in the market, in the real estate market in our City. But at the same time give them a refresher update on what CFDs are and give them a short workshop because I think that is one of the biggest concerns that I as a CFD purchaser and most people, as I have, that they are not getting the right information from the Realtors. That was brought up a number of times in the Grand Jury Report.

From the July 2, 2019 Beaumont City Council Meeting Public Comment:

1:06:00: Former City Councilman Roger Berg speaking at Public Comment regarding the case of the City/County vs ‘old’ Urban Logic Consultant Principals Dave Dillon, Ernie Egger, and Deepak Moorjani. Berg submitted 243 pages of documents for the record with request that Council ‘read it’.

“Tonight I want to present to you a letter and backup documents I sent to Judge Becky Dugan on the 15th of June regarding TUMF corruption in Riverside County. Tonight I’m presenting you this copy, which is 243 pages total. Allegations were made that the former owners of Urban Logic Consultants were City Employees who formed and Engineering Company to funnel work to themselves for 20 years without the knowledge of the Public or City Council. This was a lie that was perpetrated by people who wish to ruin our City of Beaumont. Here are the facts.”

1:07:00 Berg: When I ran for the City Council in 1993 I ran because I agreed with the steps taken by the City Council to fix the problems at the Wastewater Treatment Plant and set the stage for orderly development and upgrade the City with the Developers paying their ‘fair share’ of costs to city-wide Community Facilities District. The ULC Contract was recommended by former City Manager Dale Keller, who was a City Employee, who realized that the change of City’s planning and engineering operations was needed to develop the City without experiencing infrastructure lag that impacted every other growing City in Riverside County. It was without experiencing an infrastructure lag the City Council not approve of City Employees that held that decision. Like most of the Council from 1993 to 2014 part time Consultants were originally hired to save money and correct problems caused by previous in-house city staff that made poor decisions, which by 1992 had put the City more than $2 Million in the red due to poor business strategies and mismanagement.

1:08:00 Berg: The decision to transition back to full-time in-house staff was made by the Council due to the increased population of the City that it needed to have full-time staff to handle the increased workload. I never got a chance to tell the D.A. this. I never had a chance to talk to the Judge. I never was allowed to give my testimony although I prepared for it. I advised the D.A. Investigator when I was interviewed that I spent my career as a Project Engineer and Construction Manager with the U.S. Army Core of Engineers and I am very familiar with what is professional engineering work and what constitutes good engineering practices, planning, and execution. And yet the D.A. relied upon Lloyd White’s testimony repeatedly as he made unfounded allegations about the planning and professional engineering services provided by Urban Logic Consultants to the City of Beaumont for 20 years before he even showed up at Council Meetings or run for office. I have more to say, but I’m going to leave it at this. Please take a look at that.

1:09:00 Berg: It took me almost two years to find all the documents. They were erased, they weren’t around and everything else. We had work that had to be done. We had a sewer plant. Those people didn’t come up with this con scheme. The con scheme was done by the District Attorney and whoever else was working with him. Maybe BB&K.

1:09:20 City Councilman Lloyd White: “Mr. Pinkney, can I just correct the record that I did not testify in this matter?

City Attorney John Pinkney: Yes, you just did.