AG mayor seeks restraining order on public speaker

LeAnn asked me a question regarding a posting I had made earlier. Rather than respond directly to it where few people would read it I am responding to it as a new posting where it might be more widely read.

The link to the Grand Jury report that was written about the sanitation district when Tony Ferrara was Chairman is the following. See pages 2 and 21-23 in particular.

http://slocourts.net/downloads/grand_jury/reports/2010/06_SSLOCSD_Report.pdf

The significance of this report related to the current Arroyo Grande fiasco and Tony Ferrara is that a few years ago Mr. Ferrara, in his role as Chairperson of the South San Luis Obispo County Sanitation District, hired a former Ventura Police Chief to do an investigation regarding some allegations of misconduct at the district. The Grand Jury had some strong criticism of the resulting report.

What is of concern about this is that Steve Bowman, the owner of the Sintra Group, and Richard Thomas, the investigator hired by Ferrara, worked together in the Ventura police department. In fact, Mr. Thomas as Police Chief appears to have been Mr. Bowman’s boss. How is that for a “coincidence”?

The A.G. City Council has gone to great pains to give the appearance that Ferrara had nothing to do with the selection of the independent investigator. There is good reason for this as Ferrara is to be investigated to determine what if any lead role he might have had in a cover-up. As a minimum this makes one wonder if Ferrara had given some “unofficial input” to the A.G. selection process.

There had already been an informative message about this posted to the Cal Coast message board. I will try and copy it here to my message. But in any case, see the article “Arroyo Grande Council Calls Special Meeting to Hire Investigator”, the message posting by doggin on October 7th.

10/07/2014 at 6:07 pm

A Corrupt Investigation.

These facts are with regards to Ferrara and the AG aboard of cronies new investigation.

In the 2010/2011 San Luis Obispo Co Grand Jury report was released. It focused on allegations of questionable practices at the South SLO Sanitation District, the following was provided.

2010-2011 San Luis Obispo County Grand Jury

Page’s 2 & 3. Google the SSLOCSD grand jury report. The following is verbatim from the report. Keep in mind Ferrara was the Chariman of the SSLOCSD board, in other works in charge of the investigation.

“The Grand Jury also learned that the Board (Ferrara) had hired an investigator to review some of the allegations of misconduct. The investigator’s report indicated he had found the allegations to be false. The Board viewed this as evidence that District operations were quite satisfactory. The Grand Jury’s review of this same investigation determined it had been ineptly performed and the investigator’s conclusions were not substantiated.

The Board’s failure to recognize and eliminate or mitigate the conflict, and the Board’s failure to evaluate, re-bid or modify its contract with the District Administrator for more than 25 years”.

The Investigator hired by Ferrara was Rich Thomas, AKA, Thomas consulting workplace investigations of Ojai Calif. Mr. Thomas himself is a former Chief of police for Ventura, serving for some 30 years. He also has been the interim Pismo Chief of Police as well as serving as interim city manager on the CC. He has a personal relationship with Ferrara, a former law official himself. Not to question Mr. Thomas’s integrity, however when spoon fed only what Ferrara and the AG council want investigators to hear, the investigation is flawed,bias and pointless. Again, refer to the JG’s findings of the investigation.

Now the council has chosen the Sintra Group to perform the Adams investigation. A little back ground on the Sintra Group and Steve Bowman. A Ventura based investigative service. Mr. Bowman a former Ventura Police officer and assistant police chief, serving Ventura for some 28 years. Coincidence perhaps? Id say no, another questionable service at the tax payers cost.

There MUST be NO connection between AG city council, Ferrara, and the investigative source hired to perform this service. This must be stopped before $25,000 of tax payer funds are wasted on a rigged investigation.

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• TheNekkidTruthsays:

10/07/2014 at 8:34 pm

Not only did Rich Thomas investigate allegations of mismanagement of public funds, but what a coincidence….he also investigated allegations of sexual misconduct at the sewer plant as well!

Numerous reports from Sewer Plant Staff complained of inappropriate sexual relations between then Shift Supervisor Scott Mascolo and Lab Tech Devina Douglas. Both of whom were accusing then District Administrator John Wallace of bilking the District of millions of dollars in unneeded and sub-par administration and engineering.