Corruption in the Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission

The following is taken from the Los Angeles Civil Service Commission Website at:

http://civilservice.lacountycommissions.info/default.asp

“Welcome to Civil Service Commission. The Civil Service Commission is a Charter-mandated body charged with acting as the appellate body for major disciplinary actions, discharges, reductions, suspensions in excess of five days, and discrimination complaints filed by County employees within the Civil Service System. The Commission also hears appeals of scored portions of examinations. Additionally, the Civil Service Commission serves as the administrative appeals body for a number of cities that directly contract with the County.”

All of the members of the Commission are appointed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

DUTIES

“To serve as an appellate body for appeal of allegations of political discrimination and for

discrimination based on race, sex, color, national origin, religious opinions or affiliations

or handicap made by County employees regardless of status, and by applicants for

employment, and discharges and reductions of permanent employees.”

The audio recording that I have published with this article is my appeal of the decision that was made by a Commission Hearing Officer John D. Harris, who is a former LA County Superior Court judge to sustain a 15 day suspension that was imposed on me by my former Regional Administrator Iris Courtney. Iris Courtney, is the Regional administrator of the Department of Children And Family Services offices at the Wateridge site in Los Angeles, California.

Her justification for my suspension was based on a detention (forced removal of minors) that I was involved with of several children from a Black American family in Los Angeles, California that occurred on February 9, 2011. A few weeks after this detention I was placed on desk duty for months by my Assistant Regional Administrator Edward Bielecki, with no explanation as to why I was under investigation other than I did not call the hotline. This "hotline" in DCFS is used for emergency situations.

Looking back I see why they kept me in the dark for so long. They were preventing me from doing an investigation and gathering evidence to defend myself. When all of the evidence came out against me, I found out that some affidavits had been filed against me from the social workers that worked with me on the detention and the two supervisors that were giving orders during the detention. 

After close examination of the documents, it is obvious that the description of the events of the two days in question were conflicting. Some very obvious perjuries could have been determined if Internal Affairs had done a proper investigation of all of the evidence that includes the cell phone records from all of the employees involved and by getting statements from the family that was the focus of the intervention to remove their children into foster care.

My former Regional Administrator Iris Courtney, testified at my Civil Service hearings that she reviewed all of the evidence against me and made the decision to issue a 15 day suspension without doing any kind of investigation or getting any statements from me about the events of the two days in question. 

Before I was suspended, I did come to her office to complain with my union representative that my Assistant Regional Administrator Edward Bielecki, had ordered a frame up job by the social workers and supervisors that were involved in the detention. Iris Courtney along with the manager of the Employee relations office and the manager of the Performance Management offices all said they were not going to take any actions to stop this corruption.

At the hearing that lasted three days, several social workers and two supervisors came to the hearings and lied under oath against me! The thing about it was that their testimony was stupid, very conflicting of each other and of their written statements. The county never did get the cell phone records or did an interview of the family that was involved in this sloppy detention. They also did not get the court report log of my direct supervisor Claudia McClain or any witness from the maintenance staff that were present that night!

To sum up their ridiculous testimony:

•  They charged me with not calling the Hotline to have the children detained. 
• None of the other social workers involved in the detention, the supervisors or the Assistant Regional Administrator called the Hotline but I was the only one that got suspended!
•      The white social worker CSW Hagerty, stated that she did not know where I was during the detention.
•  CSW Hagerty, had directed me to wait down the street until the police came. CSW Meighan testified that both of them told me to wait out of sight until the police came.
•      They alleged that they could not reach me on my cell phone.
•  Yet CSW Hagerty stated that she called me on my cell phone and she knew I was down the street.
•      They alleged that I refused to do the detention court report.
•  My supervisor McClain testified that I submitted a detention report by 5:00pm. She gave false testimony that my detention report was the only one that she worked on that night. Supervising social worker McClain had many court reports that she reviewed including one from Social Worker Meighan that night and that is why we were working on the report until about 12:00 AM the next day. Supervisor McClain testified that detention reports are never late in DCFS. Detention reports are late all of the time in DCFS and social workers do not get suspended for this.
•       Meighan and my supervisor McClain, alleged that I was sleeping during the time that we were working on the court report.
• Social worker Meighan testified that I was sleeping for hours and they could not wake me up and she did not know who got me out of the building. My supervisor McClain testified that I was asleep for about an hour and she could wake me up.        

After all of this ridiculous testimony that lasted for over 14 hours, the hearing officer John D. Harris, produced an idiotic “Hearing Officer’s Proposed Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Recommended Decision” that upheld my suspension and indicated that I was the only one with no credibility!

Perjury is a felony punishable by up to four years in state prison (Penal Code Sec. 126) & Code of Civil Procedure Sec. 2015.5(b).

Who is Watching Our Borders? Why There Should Be Cameras At All Border Stations!

San Ysidro Border Crossing

      I came down to San Diego during (8/11/12 to 8/12/12). I decided to go across the border to see Mexico and how Los Angeles is becoming more and more like Tijuana. When I crossed at the San Ysidro border crossing, I notice that there were not as many American tourists that are usually going down to the Tijuana clubs at night. I went down to see some of the clubs in downtown Tijuana and notice that there were fewer Americans in this part of the city now also. I believe that this is possibly due to the increase violence caused by drug cartels. I have been coming down to Tijuana for over 15 years. 

     After visiting a few clubs, I decided to return to the U.S. I took a taxi back to the border crossing at about 3:00 am from downtown Tijuana. When we arrived at the border station, there was a long line of Mexican people that stretched several blocks from the border. The taxi driver  informed me the line is for people going across the border. I never saw a line that long during the early morning hours and was dismayed when the driver told me the lines are longer during the daytime hours. 

So I walked to the back of the line. When I finally got to the border agents on the inside of the border station, I observed that they were just letting all of the Mexicans walk across after they just flashed some kind of card that looked like a driver's license. I observed also that most of the border patrol agents were Hispanic or some other kind of foreigner. 

When I approached the border agents at the border, they questioned where I was coming from and asked for my ID. After giving them my driver’s license, they stated I am required to have a passport. They scanned my passport into their computer system and looked at the screen for a moment. The Hispanic agent that was running a background check on me, could see that I have crossed the same border many times that year and that I am an American citizen. The agent typed a few notes into her computer, glanced at me a few times, and said, “ok, you can go.” Meanwhile, the other agents allowed about 50 Mexicans to just walk across the border without scanning their ID cards into their computer system.

The next day, I returned with my camera. When I arrived at the highway overpass that stretches past the immigration border station at San Yasidro, there was a long line of cars going in and out of Mexico. Most of them were Mexicans. I started taking pictures to use with my article, border agents saw me and began to chase me, so I packed up my camera and departed the area. 

My experience at the Mexican border during this trip is further evidence that our Border Patrol and I.C.E. are just allowing immigrants to pour over into this country freely. I do not believe a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border is going to stop the flood of illegal aliens and terrorists into this country as they have allowed for the past 12 years. Historically, people have been crossing that border, since CA was a part of Mexico. This is a major threat to the health and safety of American citizens and is highly illegal. For almost a year, I lived in what is considered a border town, El Paso, Texas in the 1990s. Los Angeles, California has become just like a “border town” now even though it is about 300 miles North of the Mexican border. I blame Bush and our I.C.E.  along with U.S. Border Patrol Agents along the U.S. Mexican border.

 San Diego Trolley

 Interstate 5 crossing into Mexico

The following is an article about San Ysidro from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Ysidro,_San_Diego

San Ysidro  is a community in the southern section of San Diego. It is located in the southernmost part of San Diego County, immediately north of the U.S.-Mexico border. It neighbors Otay Mesa West to the north,Otay Mesa to the east, and Nestor and the Tijuana River Valley to the west. Major thoroughfares include Beyer Boulevard and San Ysidro Boulevard.
San Ysidro is home to the world's busiest land border crossing, where U.S. Interstate 5 crosses into Mexico at Tijuana. In the 2005 U.S. fiscal year, more than 17 million vehicles and 50 million people entered the United States at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. The great majority of these are workers (both of Mexican and U.S. nationality) commuting from Tijuana to jobs in the greater San Diego area and throughout southern California. There is also reverse traffic, both of workers traveling to maquiladoras in Mexico and those purchasing services or seeking entertainment in Tijuana. Crossing times are often slow at San Ysidro, particularly for those entering the United States in cars. For this reason many cross on foot, the line for which is frequently much faster than the vehicle line. Some foot travelers own a car in each country, and keep them in one of the large parking lots located near the border post, or use the respective public transportation systems of both cities (both systems have a bus station built solely to serve the border crossing point, and the San Diego Trolley runs from downtown San Diego to the border crossing).