Professor Eugene Goss, candidate for a 4 year seat on the
Sierra Madre City Council, has quietly retreated a bit from two earlier statements made during his run for office. The first one was in regards to his support for a
12% UUT. Despite his earlier remarks supporting
Measures 12-1 and
12-2, he is now stating that he doesn't want to raise our UUT to 12%. Which is kind of like saying you like baseball but don't approve of the use of bats. The point being the
UUT Measures on the April 10 ballot are all about raising the UUT to 12%. You just can't have it both ways.
Professor Goss is now attempting a similar distancing in regards to his endorsement by the Sierra Madre Police Officers Association. The SMPOA, which is the oftentimes obstreperous public employee union that has sued the City of Sierra Madre repeatedly, with some of the lawsuits still going down, has cost us $100s of thousands of dollars in legal fees, settlement costs and increased payments to the insurer. All of which comes right out of our pockets.
During the
VFW debate the
Professor proudly noted that he, along with the two candidates on his slate, had received the endorsement of the
SMPOA. Apparently his pride in this has now dampened somewhat. His campaign postcard, which arrived at my home yesterday includes, and in the very tiniest type imaginable, the following:
I have been endorsed by the POA because they know I am a strong supporter of law enforcement and favor retaining a local police force. I have not and will not, however, accept financial contributions from the POA.
Which strikes me as being a fairly fine distinction. Apparently Professor Goss believes this union is worthy enough to be endorsed by, but not good enough to accept money from. I'm not sure this really makes all that much difference.
Here is something else the fastidious Professor Goss might soon attempt to wash from his hands. He, along with his stablemates John Harabedian and Colin Braudrick, have now been endorsed by the Mountain Views News.
As someone who gets their news on the internet you might not be familiar with our self-styled "community newspaper." It maintains a minimal press run (some estimate it to be as low as 300), and can only be found on a few rusty old racks located downtown next to liquor stores and realty offices. But it is this City's adjudicated paper, and therefore receives money for running legal advertising and other such public notices. In other words, it is yet another questionable entity that lives off of our tax money.
The publisher and controlling personality there is a woman named Harriet "Susan" Henderson. Susan, as she prefers to be known, has been running the paper for a few years. It is a fairly humble pursuit. But what is not known by very many people here is that not only was Susan a person of significant importance in California at one time, she was also at the center of one of the biggest political scandals to hit this state's Democratic Party ever. Which is saying a lot.
Not that the Republicans are much better, mind you. Susan also belonged to that party as well, and almost at the same time. But I digress.
There are two newspaper articles in particular that I would like to recommend to you. The first one comes from the
San Francisco Examiner (click
here), the other the
San Francisco Chronicle (click
here). Each tells a story that is both shocking and, at least to me, very amusing. They should also make you wonder what in the world this person is doing here in our little town. It must have been quite a fall.
Demo leader resigns under fire - Questions over state party official's resume, credit card expenditures (May 25, 1995): H. Susan Henderson, onetime Republican turned executive director of the California Democratic Party, has resigned her $78,000-per-year post amid controversy over alleged resume-pumping and questionable expenditures on a party credit card.
State party chair Bill Press announced Henderson's departure Wednesday, the same day The Examiner reported that she had registered to vote as a Republican barely two years before taking the $78,000-per-year Democratic party post.
The Examiner also reported that the University of California had no record of awarding Henderson a law degree and an MBA, as she had claimed on her resume, and that a Sunnyvale business executive said Henderson had failed to repay a $2,000 loan.
The article goes on to detail the alleged fibbing over academic credentials.
Henderson states that she holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Ohio State University, but a spokeswoman said Ohio State had never granted a degree to Harriet Susan Henderson or Harriett Poole, Henderson's maiden name.
Henderson's resume also says that she holds an "M.B.A./J.D" from the University of California, without specifying a campus. Spokesmen at UC-Berkeley, UCLA and UC-Davis, the three UC campuses that have both law and business schools, said no such degrees had been issued to H. Susan Henderson or Harriet Poole.
If you go to Susan's Facebook page you will note that she still claims academic credentials the California Democratic Party established she didn't have before they ran her off.
The revelations regarding the misuse of the Democratic Party's credit card are equally juicy.
Party credit-card records show that in a three-month period in 1995 she ran up $12,000 in charges, including $74 at a Victoria's Secret lingerie shop in Washington D.C., $220 at a golf course in Palm Springs, $137 at a Los Angeles beauty-supply outlet and $26 at a laundry.
The San Francisco Chronicle article is equally damning.
State Democratic Party's Top Paid Staffer Quits Amid Charges - Questions asked on use of funds, resume statements (May 25, 1995): The executive director of the California Democratic Party has resigned in the wake of charges that she misused party funds and embellished her resume with academic degrees that she never received.
H. Susan Henderson, the top paid staff member in the state Democratic Party, left the post Tuesday despite an independent audit that "has determined (the party's) books and records are in order," according to a statement released by state party chair Bill Press yesterday.
However, numerous questions about Henderson remain unanswered, and state party officials did little to quell the controversy, refusing to discuss the allegations that led to her departure. The case has turned into a major embarrassment to California Democratic Party leaders, who reportedly have been receiving inquiries from the White House on why the matter has taken so long to resolve.
(The thought that the name Susan Henderson may have passed through the lips of then President Bill Clinton is an interesting one. I doubt that the references included along with that utterance would have been complimentary.)
Charges about Henderson's use of party funds for personal expenses first surfaced in an anonymous memo sent last month to Democratic leaders around the state. Two weeks ago, The Chronicle reported that Henderson used her party-issued credit card for $3,000 worth of expenses at Disneyland, the Liz Claireborne boutique in Napa and at several leading retail stores, including a Victoria's Secret outlet in Washington.
Late last week, state party secretary Jim Clarke said officials were scrutinizing Henderson's background and were unable to verify a number of academic degrees listed on her resume, including a bachelor's degree from Ohio State University and an MBA and law degree from the University of California. State bar officials say she is not a California lawyer.
Like I said, an interesting story. One that also puts into doubt the value of any endorsement given by either Susan or her paper in regards to our Sierra Madre City Council election. Perhaps if Professor Goss had known about any of this beforehand he wouldn't have been so quick to include the news on his postcard.
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