Blog Note: This article cites of
2008 grand jury report criticizing officials’ use of luxury gas-guzzling cars.
On the Los Angeles County
government’s official list of employee take-home vehicles, Supervisor Mark
Ridley-Thomas looks very frugal. His assigned car, a 9-year-old Chrysler 300
Limited sedan, cost the county about half as much as
the next supervisor’s.
But newly released vehicle
maintenance records show that Ridley-Thomas, for most of last year, actually
had two cars at his disposal. He mainly drove a 2012 version of the same model,
a $39,000 taxpayer-owned car, that was essentially off the books.
The documents reveal that
Ridley-Thomas, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, was
stretching the county’s vehicle resources more than other supervisors, and that
he misrepresented his situation when challenged. Workers maintained, cleaned
and fueled his two working cars for seven months, according to the records.
They washed one of the sedans nearly three times a week.
Ridley-Thomas said he only
drove a newer car when his older one was “inoperable.” But last year he was
driving it primarily, while somebody — it’s unclear who — drove the 2006 car
occasionally.
And whether Ridley-Thomas
actually drove the cars himself is uncertain. At least some of the time he used
his personal driver. On a recent afternoon, his chauffeur idled one of the big
black Chryslers at the county office building downtown. An on-duty sheriff’s
deputy escorted Ridley-Thomas to the curb, opened the rear passenger-side door,
and the supervisor slid onto the gray leather. His representatives did not
respond to questions about the chauffeur.
Paid only for older car
Top county officials sign
agreements and pay for their take-home vehicles, but Ridley-Thomas paid only
for the older car.
An office spokeswoman said he
was unavailable for an interview and referred all questions to the board’s
administrative branch. In an email late Friday, the board’s top bureaucrat,
Patrick Ogawa, said the older car had 126,000 miles and was “nearing the end of
its useful life.” Ridley-Thomas wasn’t actually assigned the newer car, Ogawa
said.
“Staff recommended that he use
a different vehicle,” he said. “Acting on that recommendation, Supervisor
Ridley-Thomas began using the 2012 Chrysler, which had been sitting idle.”
In public office for nearly a
quarter-century, Ridley-Thomas has drawn criticism in recent years for his use
of taxpayer funds. In 2009, at the height of the recession, he planned to spend
$700,000 to renovate his county office but met a public backlash. In 2013,
county workers renovated his home garage, partly at
taxpayer expense. After an investigation, the District Attorney’s Office
declined to file criminal charges in that case.
Ridley-Thomas represents the
Second District, which stretches from Carson to Hollywood, and from Culver City
to Compton.
What supervisors get
He and the other four county
supervisors make a base salary of $184,610 and, among their benefits, can have
the county purchase them a car worth up to $50,050. For tax purposes, they
technically “lease” the vehicle back from the government in lieu of their $656
monthly vehicle allowance and pay a small additional fee.
The newer Chrysler 300 was
originally acquired for and assigned to former Assessor John Noguez. But while
Noguez was under indictment
for bribery and on leave from the county, the
supervisor started driving it.
The 2012 edition’s interior is
far more comfortable than previous models, according to Kelley
Blue Book editors who called it the “difference
between an Army surplus cot and a goose-down feather bed.” Ridley-Thomas had
the older car when he served in the state Legislature, and the county bought it
used for $21,000 after he left Sacramento in 2008.
That older sedan was the car
officials disclosed when this news organization requested supervisors’ and
other top officials’ vehicle records covering the period from January 2014
through this spring. Despite a 2008 civil grand jury
report criticizing luxury gas-guzzling cars, top officials were still driving
them.
Left out of the records
In May, the county provided
signed agreements and purchase orders for all of the supervisors and some other
officials, including an aide in Ridley-Thomas’s office. They left out the 2012
Chrysler. A list of take-home vehicles showed just the 2006 car assigned to
Ridley-Thomas, and the newer car assigned to Noguez.
“We do what we think is a very
thorough search,” principal deputy county counsel Rene Gilbertson said. “It’s
as good faith as we can be.”
Denial and fact-check
Last month, a reporter from
this news organization asked Ridley-Thomas if he drove a newer sedan in 2014.
He said while it was hard to remember last year, the only time he drove a newer
car was when his older one was “not functioning.”
“The fact of the matter is it was in repair,”
Ridley-Thomas said.
But the supervisor’s vehicle
service records tell a different story. The county released them last week
after another public information request.
His older car only underwent
light maintenance — an oil change, tire replacement, etc. — while he was
driving the newer car, during the roughly seven months between May 7 and Dec.
19, 2014. In fact, the only maintenance that took more than the same day was
when the older car was getting detailed by an outside company, at a cost of
$136.
Old car kept clean
And the car washes continued,
even though it was barely being used. Whoever drove the 2006 Chrysler added
fewer than 300 miles over the 226 days. County workers cleaned the older sedan
five times during the seven months, in addition to the detailing. The county
government operates a car wash in its headquarters garage.
“Since the 2012 Chrysler was
assigned to the Assessor, there was always the chance the Assessor would resume
driving it,” Ogawa said.
Meanwhile, Ridley-Thomas
accumulated more than 9,000 miles on the newer car. County workers kept it
spotless. On average, they washed it 2.9 times a week during that time frame.
The other supervisors, by comparison, had their cars washed on average between
1.2 times a week and 1.9 times a week.
After Ridley-Thomas gave up the
newer Chrysler, the 2006 model’s air conditioning reportedly broke. While the
sedan was being repaired this spring, the county rented Ridley-Thomas new cars
— at a cost of up to $356 per day. For at least four days, the records
indicate, he actually had two rental cars.
August 22, 2015
Los
Angeles Daily News
By
Mike Reicher
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