You Look Spineless: The problem with ultimatums

On September 2, 2014 the Santa Ana City Council voted 6-0 to direct their City Attorney, Sonia Carvalho, to notify the Orange County District Attorney and the state Fair Political Practices Commission of their intent to release the report on the City Attorney’s investigation of potentially illegal financial transactions by Mayor Miguel Pulido. The investigation stemmed from a Voice of OC article regarding a property swap between Pulido and a city contractor that ultimately netted the mayor a nearly $200,000 profit.

Voice of OC has reported:

In 2010, Pulido’s family traded a parking lot they owned for a house in Westminster owned by Rupen James Akoubian, who also owns NAPA Orange County Auto Parts. The house was worth more than twice the fair market value of the lot, according to county assessor records.

Later, the Pulido family transferred the house solely to the mayor’s name, and he sold it for nearly $400,000. Before the sale, Pulido voted twice to award contracts to Akoubian’s store, including a no-bid $1.35 million agreement to make NAPA Orange County Auto Parts the city’s exclusive car parts vendor.

Good government experts questioned whether the property swap amounted to a $200,000 illegal gift to the mayor, or even bribery. Also, Pulido did not report his interest in the house on public disclosure forms as required by state law.

After the article was published nearly a year ago, Carvalho launched an investigation into the property swap. She referred her report on the matter – which according to the city statement involves a legal analysis of whether the state’s criminal conflict of interest law under gov. code section 1090 was broken — to the FPPC and the DA’s office.

Since the matter was turned over to the DA and FPPC, council members have become more and more frustrated with the progress of the investigation. At a Democratic Party Central Committee general election endorsement meeting in August Councilwoman Michele Martinez urged delegates to not endorse Puildo for reelection because he was “going to jail.” That frustration led to their unanimous decision on September 2nd.

The problem with issuing an ultimatum is that, once you go down that road, reversing course makes your new position appear to be a spineless reaction to push-back an your earlier decision.

“We want to be very clear on what’s going on. We want a report back on what our city attorney knows,” Tinajero told Voice of OC prior to the September 2nd meeting. Tinajero said he just wants the public to know that city leaders are taking the allegations seriously. “We don’t want the community to think we are in some way protecting Miguel [Pulido] or attempting to help him. That’s the furthest thing from the truth,” Tinajero said.

While Tinajero may be correct in pointing out that the council doesn’t want to be seen as aiding in a cover-up, their decision after their self-imposed deadline passed, to not follow through on their ultimatum makes it look like that is indeed what they are doing. While we have no direct information regarding the September 2nd closed session conversations between Carvahlo and the council, we cannot imagine that she did not inform them of the inevitable push-back from the District Attorney’s office to their threat.

While the push-back from the District Attorney was easily anticipated, the chumminess of the relationship between Mayor Pulido and OC District Attorney Tony Rackauckas legitimately casts suspicion on the reasons for the delay in any action by his office in this matter. We look to the case of County Assessor Webster Guillory as an example supporting the concerns about the investigation of Pulido.

A week after the Santa Ana City Council issued its ultimatum, the District Attorney filed charges against Guillory for filing false nomination papers in his re-election bid for County Assessor in the March 2014 Orange County primary election. Given the fact that the DA started his investigation of Guillory with far less information that was handed over to them related to Pulido, they have yet to make any determination regarding Pulido.

We feel compelled to ask, what is taking them so long to follow-up on an already thorough investigation by the Santa Ana City Attorney? Is it really that complicated? Is it really going to hinder other investigations when the core facts regarding Pulido’s property swap are already publicly evident? Or is it simply that the most unlikely scenario, that the DA just doesn’t like African-American elected officials, is the case?

The voters of Santa Ana have the right to know if their elected officials, seeking  reelection, are potentially corrupt. Dragging out investigations so that they conclude just after an election does not serve the public interest. In fact, in the case of Santa Ana, it prevents the voters from having factual information for their review prior to choosing their next mayor.

We believe that if the Santa Ana City Council feels they cannot release the full report, at a minimum, the City Attorneys conclusions should be publicly released.