Karina Macias said she saw a business opportunity shortly after being
elected to the Huntington Park City Council.
She decided to become a political consultant and parlay her connections
throughout the community to help raise campaign contributions for other
aspiring candidates.
"Parlay her connections"? How about calling it what it is? Influence peddling!
So far, she’s had only one client, raising $25,000 for a state Assembly
race in 2016. For her efforts, she said, she received a percentage of the
contributions raised, which totaled about $6,800 in commission.
Several of the contributions came from businesses — or people
associated with them — who were awarded city contracts approved by Macias and
her council colleagues, according to a Times review of campaign records and
interviews.
EEK!
How many times have I been writing about this?
How many times have other residents and activists working in and around the city have blasted this corrupt city council?
In one case, Macias voted in favor of a city contract for a bus company
that Huntington Park’s then-finance director complained was “completely
inappropriate” because the deal short-changed city taxpayers.
Yes, it was inappropriate because it ended up costing the city more money.
Macias, who is running for reelection in the March council race, denied
that contributions she raised as a political consultant influenced her
decisions on awarding city contracts to those same contributors.
Wow! And Mexico has a big beautiful wall they want to sell us in Gualajara/
“It’s not swaying my vote in any way,” Macias said.
But some government watchdogs said her actions have the appearance of a
conflict of interest and questioned whether she should have voted on contracts
involving people who donated money to a campaign that paid her a percentage of
those contributions.
“The question is, are these people really giving to the candidate or
are they giving to her?” said Bob Stern, a government ethics expert and
co-author of the Political Reform Act. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen
anything like this.”
It's a new scam. A member of the Chamber of Commerce in Florence-Firestone told me about this.
Macias raised money for Efren Martinez, who opened a campaign
fundraising committee to run for state Assembly in 2016. He had also raised
money for a 2012 Assembly race. On both occasions, Martinez decided not to run.
He now has a committee open to run in 2020.
Puppet Master Martinez is not running for office. He is running a corrupt machine politico who wants to run everyone else.
In 2015, Martinez’s campaign reported paying Macias for fundraising
services, campaign filings show. Martinez’s financial disclosures show that
among his donors was the company that received the city’s bus and dial-a-ride
contracts, a legal services firm, towing contractors, and a vendor that
provides street sweeping and bus stop maintenance.
Macias was also paid a $1,000 fundraising salary from another PAC run
by Martinez called Saving Local Jobs, which also received contributions from
city contractors.
However, that compensation was not based on commission. Stern said
that although it still raises
conflict-of-interest concerns, they aren’t as serious.
In an interview with The Times, Macias confirmed several of the donors
she raised money from.
Macias said she raised money from Erika Hernandez, wife of the general
manager of the city’s bus and dial-a-ride contractor Metro Transit Services.
Records show Hernandez donated $4,200 to Martinez’s campaign on May 29, 2015.
That month, Macias and the council majority voted to award Metro
Transit the multimillion-dollar bus contract. A little over a year later, she
voted to give the company a dial-a-ride contract worth more than $3 million.
Macias also voted for a contract amendment with the company that
allowed it to lease new buses from the city. The five buses cost Huntington
Park $260,000, but it leased them to Metro Transit Services for $100 a month
per bus.
HUH?
The city’s finance director wrote in an email to the city manager that
the bus leases were far below market value and “completely inappropriate.”
No kidding!
Macias also acknowledged raising donations from at least two others
doing businesses with the city: Nationwide Environmental Services, the city’s
street sweeping and bus stop maintenance vendor, and the owners of H.P.
Automotive & Tow Service Inc.
Macias said she couldn’t recall other contributions from city
contractors, or denied asking for them. The Times asked her for an example of a
contribution she raised that was not associated with a city contractor. She
couldn’t provide any and didn’t return phone calls following up on that
request.
WOW! Karina La Korrupta!
In the case of Nationwide Environmental Services, Macias made the
motion in April to give the company a bus stop maintenance contract worth more
than $111,000 over two other bidders for the contract.
Macias said she decided to get into the political fundraising business
after her parents fell ill and she was forced to quit her day job to care for
them. The consulting business is a way to make extra income, and she said she
has ambitions to build a more successful company.
Sure she has ambitions -- to rip off everyone else and enrich herself.
She said she figured she could ask people she’s “gotten to know as a councilwoman”
for the money. She said she told contractors she would be getting paid
commissions for delivering the money, but she denied discussing city business
with any of the contributors while asking them for money.
“That’s pretty much my approach to fundraising,” Macias said.
Martinez described Macias’ role differently. He said he initially made
contact with all of the contributors and got them to commit to contributions.
But, the most difficult part of fundraising is collecting on those commitments,
so he dispatched Macias to be the “bill collector.”
Macias’ job was to make sure those people wrote the checks and to
collect them, Martinez said. She was paid a combination of commissions and
salary for the work, he said.
In either case, the fundraising arrangement is problematic, government
watchdogs say.
Problematic? How about criminal?!
Jessica Levinson, a lecturer at Loyola Law School and member of the Los
Angeles Ethics Commission, said the commissions give the appearance of a
conflict of interest.
“I would say it’s a very unusual setup, and one that raises the specter
of where her alliances are,” Levinson said. “It looks like what it might be,
which is a kickback scheme, but not necessarily an illegal one.”
Karina La Korrupta is using her connections to get rich, and it is shameful that she is hiding behind her ill parents to justify her corruption. What would her father and mother say to such perversity?
wish I could share this on Facebook...
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