LOS CERRITOS
Winner of Fourteen LA Press Club Awards from 2012- 2017.
86,000 Homes Every Friday • March 8, 2019 • Vol 33, No. 41
TAX PAYER FUNDED 'ANTAGONISM CAMPAIGN' BY ENGLANDER, KNABE, ALLEN WAGED COVERT WAR ON TRAFFIC RELIEF EFFORTS IN ORANGE COUNTY BY BRIAN HEWS
T
he pitched battle for the toll roads extension from Oso Parkway to the 5-freeway in South Orange County has been raging for over three years, the main combatants involve the Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) and the city and some residents of San Clemente who want nothing to do with the extension. And in recent months, the battle has become an all-out war. The TCA sent out a request for proposal in 2015 for a wide-ranging public outreach program to engage the public on traffic congestion issues and to seek stakeholder input on possible solutions. Irvine-based Venture Strategic submitted the lowest responsible bid, beating out others including the well-known and much larger Los Angeles-based firm of Englander, Knabe, Allen by a significant margin. Since the inception of the campaign,
CERRITOS COLLEGE BREAKS GROUND ON NEW PERFORMING ARTS CENTER BY TAMMYE MCDUFF
It was a full house as the Cerritos Board of Trustees celebrated the new Performing Arts Center, with a ground breaking ceremony March 6, 2019. The $80-million project is funded by Measure G Bond dollars is located in the center of the campus immediately south of Falcon Square. The 70,000-grosssquare-foot facility will replace the College’s aging Burnight Theatre. “Because of the support from the community, we are able to move forward and transform Cerritos College into the 21st Century with new buildings and technological upgrades,” said Marisa Perez, Board Vice President. The Center will provide an instructional space for student artists and entertainment professionals. “In dedicating this ground for the New Performing Arts Center, we re-emphasize our commitment ensuring that Cerritos College will provide students with a quality education and facilities that will meet
See PERFORMING ARTS page 6
Venture has received accolades from the TCA, Caltrans, several area city council-members, and many other organizations for their outreach across all platforms, including social media, video content, and traditional and digital advertising. TCA’s outreach effort has been so effective that the twelve national and local environmental groups that were in litigation with TCA for many years, dropped their lawsuits and no longer oppose the agency’s traffic relief efforts so long as they avoid designated environmentally sensitive lands. In addition, a routine audit by TCA’s
licensed auditors showed that Venture’s billings to TCA were 99.9% accurate. That accuracy was due in large part to Venture and TCA’s commitment to transparency in the billing process. The system mandates that Venture’s team submit their billings to an attorney who questions and reviews all timesheets, assigns the hours to the appropriate category, finally submitting to the TCA for review that goes through several layers of scrutiny prior to approval. The audit confirmed Venture has consistently come in under budget every year, verifying that the consulting
firm actually underbilled the agency for its services. But behind the scenes, the overall success of TCA’s outreach campaign worried the San Clemente City Council, so much so that they set out on a secretive, highly questionable, and possibly illicit scheme to kill the toll road project. And they used Englander, who lost the initial outreach contract to Venture, as their consultant. Hews Media Group-Los Cerritos Community News has obtained documents showing that after Englander lost the initial bid to Venture, the firm proposed a multi-platform $97,000 “antagonism campaign,” funded by the taxpayers of San Clemente. The seven-page contract was approved in July 2017, questionably placed on the consent calendar during a regular City Council meeting.
See COVERT page 7
SHERIFF RECOGNIZED FOR SAFETY EFFORTS IN ARTESIA CENTRAL BASIN'S LETICIA VASQUEZ REMOVED FROM THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT BOARD BY BRIAN HEWS
HONORED: Deputy Tom Phillips, holding recognition certificate, with (from l-r) Councilmen Ali Taj and Rene Trevino, Councilwoman Melissa Ramoso, Mayor Tony Lima, and Mayor Pro Tem Miguel Canales. Photo by Kristin Keiser.
BY TAMMYE MCDUFF Artesia Mayor Tony Lima presented a certificate to Deputy Tom Phillips in recognition for being selected as the Rotary Club’s 2019 Sheriff of the Year. Phillips has been invaluable in maintaining high standards of public safety
in Artesia, “I want to thank the Mayor and Council for this recognition. It is truly humbling and I love working for the city of Artesia Traffic Enforcement and it is a true passion of mine.” Phillips is an 11 year veteran of the Sheriff’s
See ARTESIA page 6
Hews Media Group-Los Cerritos Community News has exclusively learned that embattled Central Basin Water Director and State Senate District 33 candidate Leticia Vasquez has been removed from her seat on the Metropolitan Water District Board. She was removed last week during the regular board meeting of the Commerce-based water agency. The removal might pose a huge problem for her struggling campaign. And Vasquez was not happy about the removal. Even though several items remained on the board agenda, it was reported that Vasquez immediately got up after the vote and left the meeting. The charge to remove Vasquez from the “Met Board," which will cost her thousands in stipends, was led by long-
See REMOVED page 6
