Tom King on the Latest San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments Revelations

Long time Tattler readers are familiar with the name of Tom King. A former Mayor of the City of Walnut, he went on to become the President of the San Gabriel Valley Council Of Governments. The COG, as Nancy Walsh puts it, is an organization that many feel has developed some serious ethics issues over the years. Particularly the folks at CALTRANS, who apparently have had their fill of the shenanigans from SGVCOG's Executive Director, Nick Conway. And nobody is more concerned about this than Tom King.

As a bit of background, there was a big expose' on the latest troubling revelations about The COG in yesterday's San Gabriel Valley Tribune (click here). The article, "Regional governing board criticized for failing to release early version of audit," includes a lot of important information to be sure. But to the point of today's post, here are the charges that were leveled at the SGVCOG's Nick Conway by CALTRANS:

Funding at risk - Caltrans has release two audits - one in 2006 and one in September - that concluded that the relationship with Conway caused a conflict of interest. The report referred to Arroyo Associates as AAI.

"By acting as the executive director and also providing services and the staff for the day-to-day operations of SGVCOG, the owner and president of AAI (Arroyo), was making management decisions for SGVCOG that resulted in financial compensation to AAI (Arroyo), and, in turn, resulted in financial compensation to the executive director as the owner and president of AAI (Arroyo)," the September CALTRANS audit read.

In other words, SGVCOG received money from CALTRANS to perform Gold Line related work, and Nick Conway, as its executive director, awarded a lot of the administrative work to a subcontractor called Arroyo Seco Associates. And who owns Arroyo? Nick Conway, of course.

It has been estimated that out of The COG's $3 million operating budget for the year, a full $1 million of that was pumped directly into Arroyo. According to the CALTRANS folks, Conway funneled public money it was his responsibility to properly oversee into a third party company that he owns, and for his own personal profit. About as big a conflict of interest as you will ever see.

And to think Sierra Madre pays dues to this unethical mess.

Former SGVCOG president Tom King, in an exclusive statement to The Tattler regarding what this could possibly mean for us, warns of the potential dangers to all of the cities belonging to that organization. Here is how he lays it out:

The SGV Tribune has a new article out about Nick Conway. I think the article understates the serious nature of the problem. The SGVCOG gets millions of dollars in grants that have their origins in Federal American Recovery Act funding. Conflicts of interest in Federally funded grants are a serious no-no. It makes that organization ripe for a forensic audit by Federal authorities.

I am concerned about the manner that Executive Director of the SGVCOG Nick Conway may be administering the SGVCOG grants programs could be inviolation of California Government Code 1090:

"Members of the Legislative, state, county, district, judicial district, and city officers or employees shall not be financially interested in any contract made by them in their official capacity, or by any body or board of which they are members. Nor shall state, county, district, judicial district, and city officers or emplyees be purchasers at any sale or vendors at any purchase made by them in their official capacity."

Nick Conway (dba Arroyo Seco Associates) provides management and administrative services to a joint powers authority (SGVCOG) and is paid a monthly, fixed price retainer for its work. As part of its duties, Nick Conway manages the activities both of subcontractors to the joint powers authority and/or other public entities who work on publicly funded grant programs that are awarded to the joint powers authority. Nick Conway gets additional reimbursement for its management activities associated with the grant programs.

Nick Conway identifies grant programs to be pursued by the joint powers authority and prepares the grant applications and is compensated by the joint powers authority for doing so; and Nick Conway develops his own scope of work and proposed compensation amounts in connection with the grant programs, negotiates those matters directly with the grant funding entities and subsequently recommends the scope of work and compensation amounts to the board of the SGVCOG as part of the board's grant approval process, and Nick Conway then manages the grant programs on behalf of the SGVCOG.

That would appear to violate both State and Federal Conflict of Interest laws, and places all San Gabriel Valley COG member agencies (cities) AT RISK for the recall of Grants Adminstered by the SGVCOG. That is an unacceptable risk to my community. Conway's conduct is unacceptable and does not meet ethical standards required by my community or City Council. If the SGVCOG governing board fails to correct this, I will recommend that we suspend our membership in this organization.

In other words, if Nick Conway is found by the Feds to have been in violation of applicable Conflict of Interest laws, the Federal money funneled to Sierra Madre through the SGVCOG would all have to be all paid back. No matter how long ago it was spent. Something that could very well not only bankrupt us, but a good portion of the 31 cities unfortunate enough to belong to the SGVCOG as well.

Coming on the heels of revelations regarding the huge sums of money the City of Sierra Madre is going to have to cough up for both windstorm clean up and the consequences of that ill-timed CRA spend-a-thon, having to pay Washington back its money because the SGVCOG and its Executive Director got busted in a Federal/State ethics probe could be quite a debacle for this town.

And if what I have been hearing today is true, Federal and State investigations might not be too far off in the future.

Bonus Coverage: Social Media Explained (click here).

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