A Los Angeles metropolis bureaucrat is beneath hearth for securing herself an eye-watering pay elevate behind closed doorways -— to the tune of roughly $150,000 — at the same time as former workers accuse her of harassment and fudging funds numbers, in keeping with a bombshell whistleblower report.
Alma Martinez, metropolis supervisor of El Monte within the San Gabriel Valley, allegedly organized a hasty backroom deal to spike her taxpayer-sponsored pay bundle to a whopping $430,000 — together with roughly $50,000 in again pay and different platinum perks like a automotive allowance and hefty severance bundle — within the working-class metropolis of roughly 120,000, the place the median family revenue hovers at about $65,000.
Martinez’s alleged conduct was detailed by whistleblower Ed Rardin, a neighborhood code enforcement officer who filed quite a few complaints about Martinez to regulation enforcement and ethics watchdogs.
She is “the first benefactor of plenty of El Monte shenanigans,” Rardin claims.
In response to Rardin, a lifelong El Monte resident and native Latter-Day Saints Bishop, Martinez unexpectedly convened a thriller closed-door assembly in Could that instantly raised alarm bells for native watchdogs, together with Mayor Jessica Ancona.
At that assembly, Rardin claims, Martinez locked in a wage bump practically extraordinary within the public sector — elevating her complete compensation to almost $430,000 together with advantages from $280,000, in keeping with Mayor Jessica Ancona, who blasted the deal as a “clean test” on social media.
The candy deal included a 25% enhance to Martinez’s base wage price $70,000 yearly plus a bunch of gimmes corresponding to automotive and training allowances, lifetime medical advantages, compensation of a short lived wage discount throughout Covid, 18 months’ severance — and a assure that she’ll make not less than 20% greater than some other metropolis govt, per the mayor.
“All of this taking place … after most metropolis workers obtained solely a 5% elevate [and] whereas our metropolis is defending two lawsuits involving the town supervisor,” Ancona wrote on social media.
El Monte is going through a funds deficit of roughly $5 million, in keeping with the mayor.
That isn’t the one shady allegation surrounding Martinez, who previously labored in comparable roles in Lynwood and Compton.
Rardin mentioned there was humorous enterprise surrounding quite a few metropolis contracts spanning cleansing, waste hauling and different providers — a few of which have been mysteriously re-upped with years nonetheless remaining on the deal.
This included a contract with trash hauler Valley Vista Companies, which Rardin claimed is run by Martinez’s important different, whose $30 million contract was prolonged mid-term with no rationalization and no aggressive bidding, elevating battle of curiosity questions.
What’s extra, Martinez bizarrely bragged at a November worker appreciation luncheon that she’d tapped metropolis contractors to purchase some $14,500 in reward playing cards that have been handed out as “thank yous” to 290 metropolis workers.
“On the lunch, she learn a prolonged record of distributors who contributed and said that our Finance Director had obtained the reward playing cards from Goal,” Rardin wrote in an e-mail to the Los Angeles District Legal professional.
Rardin was mortified by the reward and in contrast it to extortion.
“An argument may very well be made that the cash was given as a result of enterprise feared that in the event that they hadn’t, they could misplaced no matter contract that they had or wouldn’t obtain favorable choices when coping with metropolis administration.”
Martinez is called in not less than two lawsuits describing a poisonous and retaliatory office.
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One lawsuit, filed by former deputy metropolis supervisor Amber Servin and set for trial subsequent 12 months, paints Martinez as a bully boss who tormented the previous deputy metropolis supervisor for lodging a hostile office grievance.
The lawsuit alleges Martinez harassed and humiliated Servin, one passive-aggressively gifting her the e-book “The 5 Dysfunctions of a Crew” throughout a vacation luncheon and forcing her to learn aloud in entrance of subordinates.
A separate lawsuit, filed by former finance director Bruce Foltz in opposition to the town of El Monte, accused Martinez of asking him to fudge police additional time numbers in a report. When he refused, Martinez reprimanded him for insubordination, in keeping with the grievance.
Martinez didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
