Questionable Deal: Are the Taxpayers Funding Willie Brown’s Newspaper?

INSIDE INGLEWOOD-Since 1996, the City of Inglewood may have maintained an annual contract with Ads Up, Inc., a firm owned by Willie Brown, the publisher of Inglewood Today.   

A letter dated December 2, 2003 from then-city manager Mark Weinberg to the mayor (Roosevelt F. Dorn) and city council stated that “It is recommended that the Mayor and City Council approve a new agreement with Ads Up, Inc. to reduce the monthly service fee from $10,800 to $9,664.30 for the balance of the term of the agreement, and to limit the total compensation for the year to $121,650. (General Fund)”   

The contract agreement was started on May 14, 1996 when Inglewood Today was a monthly magazine. The contract was obtained via public records requests at the City of Torrance.   

A prior records request to the City of Inglewood was answered by a letter from the city attorney’s office saying “the City does not have any documents responsive to your request re: ‘contracts, and communications’...to/ from/ concerning Inglewood Today, Ads Up, Ad Up and/ or Willie Brown.”   

During that time, Inglewood Today was also using city funds to mail out the magazine and to illegally promote select politicians including Dorn, former council members Curren Price (now an LA city council member) and Jose Fernandez (of Centinela Valley Union High School District), current District 3 council member Eloy Morales, Jr. and current treasurer Wanda Brown.    

In a California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) ruling dated December, 2004, a fine of $50,000 was levied against the City of Inglewood. The postage costs, which could have been in the tens of thousands of dollars over four consecutive years, were not recovered by the city. As a result, the annual cost to the city for the remarkable and unique contract to maintain a state-owned “news” magazine may have been approximately $150,000 per year for at least four years.   

Also included in the costs were funds from the Redevelopment Agency. Those funds remain exhibited on the current Required Obligation Payment Schedule (ROPS), a process to pay back the State of California. The item is listed as “Advertising & Publication Admin costs, Advertising & Notice of Public Hearings ... Total Outstanding Debt or Obligation: $20,000.”

 

(Randall Fleming is a veteran journalist and magazine publisher. He has worked at and for the New York Post, the Brooklyn Spectator and the Los Feliz Ledger. He is currently editor-in-chief at the Morningside Park Chronicle, a weekly newspaper based in Inglewood, CA and on-line at www.MorningsideParkChronicle.com. Mr Fleming’s views are his own and do not reflect the views of CityWatch.) 

 -cw

  

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 49

Pub: June 17, 2014