City of Torrance Mayor Pat Furey under fire again for FRAUD

Patrick Furey Jr. has resigned from the Torrance Unified School District (TUSD)Personnel Commission. The news was confirmed via an e-mail by new Deputy Superintendent Dr. Tim Stowe who released an internal memo on the subject.

Furey Jr.’s position on the Commission had come under fire due to his role in a political scandal involving illegal campaign contributions to his father’s 2014 mayoral campaign that led to a $35,000 fine by the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). Furey Jr. served as his father’s campaign manager during that election campaign.

The incident resulted in Furey Jr. stepping down earlier this year from his role on the City’s Traffic Commission just prior to when the Council was to hold a vote on whether to oust him. In his resignation letter, he said that “these sad political attacks on the Mayor and my family are embarrassing our City.”  He also lamented that:

“Now the most extreme elements of our City – people who literally do nothing but complain, make vicious public attacks about people they don’t even know, and write racist and homophobic blogs – call all the shots. Now they can move on to just attacking my father and leave my family out of it.”

Furey Jr. was initially appointed to the Personnel Commission in December 2012. His father had previously served in the same role from 2006 to 2008. Furey Jr. was re-appointed to the position in December 2015 and his current term does not expire until December 2018.

The Commission was established to ensure favoritism and nepotism are kept out of the District’s hiring practices and that employees are hired based only upon demonstrated ability and not on who they know. Furey Jr. was appointed to the Commission by the California School Employees Association (CSEA) Chapter #845.  His mother, Teresa Furey, is still currently listed on CSEA’s website as its First Vice President.

CSEA has 15 days from the day the position became vacant to publicly submit a new name to fulfill the remainder of Furey Jr.’s term.

McCormick Contract Extended; Late Contributions to Dagastino’s Campaign Disclosed

August 28, 2016 Clint Paulson  General

Last Tuesday, the Council voted by a 6 to 1 margin to extend the McCormick emergency transportation and billing services contract for another year. McCormick received a ringing endorsement from Fire Chief Serna as data provided by the City showed they had met or exceeded contract expectations, including the critical response time requirement of 92% as reflected in the table below.

Councilman Milton Herring, the lone nay vote, expressed concerns about McCormick’s involvement in past campaign finance violations and said he wanted the City to undertake the Request for Proposal (RFP) process so they could evaluate other potential bidders.

Councilmembers Griffiths and Ashcraft joined Herring in expressing reservations about the contract, but ultimately approved the extension indicating their belief that there was insufficient time at this point to complete the RFP process. They also noted that they had recently voted to release a solicitation seeking other vendors for the service, but that such motion brought forward last April was not approved by their colleagues on the Council.

During her comments, Councilwoman Ashcraft stated:

“I have consistently voted against the City’s contract with McCormick Ambulance because of what I have perceived as a “pay to play” situation involving them during the election campaign of 2014 that got them the contract … It’s regrettable to me that McCormick thought they had to pay to play in order to get the contract, because I believe they would have gotten it other than that.”

Resident Linda Gottshall-Sayed, who previously served on the Ethics Commission with Mayor Furey, forcefully reminded the Council during the meeting that McCormick and the Mayor had broken the law and also urged the Council to seek additional vendors for the service in the future.

Prior to the vote, Mayor Furey acknowledged an e-mail received from former Councilwoman Maureen O’ Donnell wherein she wrote to the mayor, “Because of circumstances well known to you, please be honorable and recuse yourself from voting on the McCormick contract.”

With regard to the issue, Mayor Furey solicited advice from City Attorney John Fellows who responded by saying:

“There is no legal requirement for recusal here. To the extent that the request for recusal hinges upon campaign contributions generally speaking those are not considered an economic benefit to an elected official.”

Fellows made no comment on the unusual arrangement in which McCormick paid Mayor Furey’s FPPC fine and whether that relationship arose to a conflict of interest requiring recusal. Fellows has also thus far declined to pursue any action against the Mayor for violations of municipal law revealed in the Fair Political Practices (FPPC) investigation.

Perhaps due to all the hoopla surrounding their involvement in the 2014 election, McCormick was much less visible in the recent 2016 election. Required post election disclosures did reveal, however, three $1,000 contributions made to the campaign of Leilani Kimmel-D'Agostino from representatives of McCormick. These contributions were made in late June 2016 after the election had already concluded. D'Agostino was endorsed by Mayor Furey and the public employee unions, but ended up losing despite outspending all of the other candidates.

The post election financial disclosure also revealed another $14,846 payment to RFC Communications bringing the total paid to that firm to nearly $50,000. RFC appears to be the latest incarnation of Patrick Furey Jr’s political consulting firm due to it sharing a phone number, address, and client list with Furey Jr’s prior firm Liberty Campaign Solutions. Dagastino had hired Furey Jr. to work as her campaign manager, but tried to distance herself from him during the campaign by saying she only hired him to design some print material.

Furey Jr. resigned from his post on the Traffic Commission earlier this year after public outcry due to his role in the events that led to McCormick and Furey being fined $35,000 by the FPPC. In his resignation letter, he blamed extreme elements of the City he referred to as racists. In similar fashion, D'Agostino attributed her campaign loss to racism as well as a “hate campaign” that was waged against her.

Furey Jr. still serves the City and its schoolchildren through his role on the Torrance Unified School District’s Personnel Commission. That Commission is designed to ensure favoritism and nepotism are kept out of the District’s hiring practices and that employees are hired based only upon demonstrated ability and not on who they know. Furey Jr. was appointed to the Commission by the California School Employees Association (CSEA) Chapter #845.  His mother, Teresa Furey, is still currently listed on CSEA’s website as its First Vice President.

Clint Paulson