Now former Los Alamitos Mayor, and 11.4 point LANDSLIDE LOSER of the 72nd Assembly race Troy Edgar apparently isn’t humbled by his recent failures. He spent well into six-figures to lose big to a relatively unknown competitor last month, and seems to be vindictively paying back his City (which he also lost) and opponents on the City Council who aren’t on his Christmas card list.
While still Mayor at their last Council Meeting, Edgar intentionally juggled the Agenda to ensure he and his sycophants were able to vote on items which the newly elected (but not yet sworn) members more appropriately needed to discuss and cast their votes upon per Dave Emerson, proprietor of the Let’s Fix Los Al blog:
…despite pleas from two Council Members and several audience members to install newly elected Council Members the way Los Alamitos has always done it and the way our surrounding communities do it, Troy Edgar and his outgoing wing man & woman bulldozed forward, inconveniencing dozens of friends and family members of both outgoing and incoming Council Members as well as ordinary citizens like me, who finally gave up and went home.
There’s more here and here. The Los Al/Seal Beach Patch reported that most of the damage was reversed after the new Council members were sworn in: One Final 2012 Tug of War at Los Al Council.
Fortunately for Los Al, Troy Edgar is no longer Mayor and won’t be potentating the second smallest city in the OC from the center seat — a fair and reasonable man, Warren Kusumoto, was elected to replace him: Kusumoto Unanimous For Mayor, Murphy For Pro Tem, Mejia Disappointed. Still, Edgar despitefully stiffed Council opponent Gerri Mejia out of her “turn” at a resume-building Mayor’s title. Kusumoto moved immediately to undo some of Edgar’s malfeasance per the Patch:
…the tug of war continued even after the former majority had stepped down — Kusumoto, with the support of Graham-Mejia and the two new councilmembers, called back two of the items that had already been voted in. The new council reversed the previous council’s vote on the pay raise, deciding to hold off an salary discussion until January.
Unfortunately for Los Al, Edgar can run for Council again when his current four-year term expires in 2014 — unless he’s foolish enough to try again for a higher office. We’ll be watching.
Update: Here’s the Register story on the Council meeting. In a very interesting development, Roxana Kopetman reports:
In other council action, Graham-Mejia did not support certifying the results of the November election because she said she was contacted by many voters who were upset and said they were misled to vote for Measure DD, a new law that reduces the telephone users tax from 6 to 5 percent. The law also applies to many other types of telecommunication services, including some that don’t exist yet. Critics say the measure raises taxes, not lowers them. More than 70 percent of the voters in Los Alamitos approved the measure. “I think people now are realizing they voted for something they wouldn’t have if they understood that correctly,” the councilwoman said.
We reported extensively on this tax FRAUD that Edgar was pushing on his electorate a few months ago:
Troy Edgar’s Big Fat Tax Increase
Register reiterates NO on Troy Edgar’s Los Alamitos Telephone Tax
Troy Edgar’s Prospects Dim, AD72 Candidate Goes Ballistic
It was interesting to watch from the peanut gallery.
Poe said she had read Edgar’s giveaway to the staff from cover to cover and understood it all. It wasn’t until she was questioned on Section 10, which was not in English as we know it, that it became clear to all that were there that Edgar was still doing it. He was still having his flunky do his bidding to give gifts of city money away.
The whole “we did this all in closed” was interesting. It seems that Edgar can insinuate what happens in Closed Session and spin it to his best advantage, but if anyone else who even tries to point out that Edgar has just created an absolute fantasy and wants to really open up the Closed Session and discuss it, they are not given the opportunity. Since discussing what happened in Closed Session would be a Brown Act violation, how does Edgar get away with insinuating that this was all blessed in a Closed Session? Probably because he isn’t actually discussing what happened in Closed Session. See if he is telling the public absolute bullcrap he is not violating the Brown Act!
With all the Brown Act violations that have been made against Edgar one would hope that he would have some passing familiarity with the law, but alas, it seems that he really doesn’t. Well, he may, but since he was King twice and had his flunkies voting for everything he wanted, maybe he thinks the law doesn’t apply to him.
Now why would he get that impression? Maybe because his first campaign was funded by the trash guys. Then he gave the guys that funded his campaign a massive $6,000,000 profitable contract in violation of the City Municipal Code. Maybe because even after a CA Superior Court Judge stated that Troy clearly violated the law he was able to control the City Council and make sure that his violation never was prosecuted. Maybe because he created a fraudulent city document, and when the complaint was filed with the OC DA, the DA who just happened to have endorsed his candidacy decided not to even investigate the charges beyond calling the City Attorney and asking “Did Troy Edgar falsify a City Document?”. To which the City Attorney (who is also facing a complaint to the bar that she violated ethics) said “No.” Maybe because that same City Attorney is creating new “rules” that citizens have to follow that don’t exist to save Troy Edgar from having to face the fact that he repeatedly violated the Brown Act as Mayor.
Troy Edgar believes he is above the law because he has never been held accountable for his numerous and flagrant violations of the law.
Best example. At the meeting, after telling us in broad strokes what he thinks happened in Closed Session, Troy tells us that he has had a meeting with the two incoming council members to share his plans and visions for the future.
Just how many times do we have to hear Edgar tell us from the dais that he has openly and flagrantly violates the Brown Act? He was the hub that spoke to two members of the City Council to give them instructions on how he plans to run the city? There are five total members of City Council. Three of them can NOT meet and discuss city business. NOT all at once. NOT serially. NOT hub-and-spoke. We all know that he has been doing it for the last four years with tweedle-dee (Stephens) and tweedle-dum (Poe), but at least he had the good graces to NOT rub our noses in the fact that he flagrantly violates the criminal code. Seems that he doesn’t even care if we know any more. There is Edgar in all of his glory stating in open session that he performed a criminal act and violated the Brown Act, and he knows that nothing will be done to him, because he has been doing it for years and he has gotten away with it.
He can take money and do favors
He can violate the municipal code
He can do multiple Brown Act violations
He can create false official city documents
He can blatantly violate the Brown Act and tell us all that he did it!
He can do all of this, and still think his poop doesn’t stink and that he lays gold bricks.
He can do it all because he has friends in high places. Friends like Royce that got him all those endorsements. Friends like the OC DA who endorsed him. Friends that will protect him while he dreams his dreams of being out there playing with the big boys in the big money corruption gigs of higher office.
Well, someone got pissed off enough to complain to the proper authorities about the Los Alamitos City Attorney. I wouldn’t be surprised if that person, and others, have already taken it to a higher authority than the good ‘ol boy OC DA that endorsed Edgar. Maybe the good ‘ol boy should be watching out for his own backside rather than protecting an electoral has-been.
There is that phrase “the King is dead, long live the King”. Well for the first time in a long time Los Alamitos is no longer under the thumb of the King anti-Midas. It will be nice to have honest government in Los Alamitos again, it;’s been a long four years.
[for more of King Edgar’s shenanigans, please see http://www.letsfixlosal.com/ where you can read all about how he has set a new standard that City Employees he likes (that report directly to the City Council) are allowed to do self-directed work and bill the city for it!]
The new Council has, in our opinion, two things to accomplish ASAP: 1) Attempt to undo the trash hauler contract and 2) Undo the Telephone Tax before it does some real damage. We’re confident that Mayor Kusumoto will take some action on both issues — success with either will be great bullets for whoever might run against Edgar in 2014.