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![High flying members of the Cerritos Arts Commission [l-r] Julietta Williams, Elaine Shiohama and Janet Beach attended the ‘Art Symposium’ in Miami, costing Cerritos taxpayers over $8,000. Doris Iglesias who also attended is not pictured. The Cerritos City Council has nixed all future travel for city commissioners after HMG-CN ran critical articles about the pricey trips. Graphic by HMG-CN.](https://i0.wp.com/www.loscerritosnews.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Picture-9.png?resize=300%2C221&ssl=1)
High flying members of the Cerritos Arts Commission [l-r] Julietta Williams, Elaine Shiohama and Janet Beach attended the ‘Art Symposium’ in Miami, costing Cerritos taxpayers over $8,000. Doris Iglesias who also attended is not pictured. The Cerritos City Council has nixed all future travel for city commissioners after HMG-CN ran critical articles about the pricey trips. Graphic by HMG-CN.
The Cerritos City Council have decided that members of various commissions and boards will no longer be travelling around the nation and globe on city related business after Hews Media Group-Community Newspaper published a series of critical articles detailing how tens of thousands of public dollars were being spent annually to attend lavish trips and exclusive upscale conferences and seminars.
The decision to stop the commissioners from travelling was made at a recent Cerritos City Council budget session. Mayor Mark Pulido and other city council members are expected to formally approve the new travel ban in an upcoming public meeting at the end of June.
Starting on July 1, members of the Planning Commission, Fine Arts and Historical Commission, the Property Preservation Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission will be halted.
HMG-CN has been critical of the lack of oversight by both city council members and commissioners in Cerritos related to lavish travel.
Cerritos city spokesperson Annie Hylton told HMG-CN in a phone interview on Thursday that current and future city council members are not impacted by the travel change.
“The new change will only effect commissioners, not city council members, or staff members,” Hylton added.
LCCN| Carol Chen Legacy | Tombstone | City has Deferred Maintenance |
https://www.loscerritosnews.net/2014/06/06/cerritos-commissioners-have-travel-plans-axed/
Council Person Chen, finally broke the candy cane coated smear tactics, to openly admit, the city has millions of dollars of Deferred Maintenance Public Works (PW) Projects, which are only growing larger in percentage, year after year. City can not stop driving buses over & hiding menopausal city PW and start seeking funds and budget to address. City worn and fractured PW are wearing the cityhoods values down, down and residents should not be held to PPC Spear-gun, when the cityscaping is worn out.
Budget Recording | 3.5 Hrs | View from Smart TV-Cell or PC:
http://cerritos.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=15&clip_id=3253
Non-Kept Examples:
• Bloomfield Blvd.
• Artesia Blvd.
• Shoemaker Gore Waterfall.
• Del Amo Blvd.
http://cerritospublicworks.blogspot.com/
1. City Council in order to balance the budget may impose utility tax compared, to our trash can tax; in order to create slush account for PW financing. Will public vote support this?
2. City Council, cancelled our annual calendars.
3. Also may have a tax and or pay for part of our street lights assessments.
4. J Cho in 2009, proposed to eliminate all commissions except for Planning Commission, this may become realty.
5. No more travel for commissions. Commissioners were more traveled and educated, compared to department staffers and directors.
6. When redevelopment (RDA) closed, plus closed LCM sub sheriff station, city absorbed all of those employees. City is overstaffed w/ over 600 Full-Part time staffers. My thoughts, like to see reduction of employees, as 600 full and part time employees is top heavy.
7. Do we need (2) assistant city managers?
8. Do we need FT –GPS personnel?
9. Do we need additional books to the Library. Few yrs of dry-blank purchase orders, may be part of the RX for saving budget of $3.8M Overage.
10. CCPA donates too much free time to (NPO) organizations, which CCPA (us) have to pay for labor. More Neg. cash flow. Poss. over $.5M dollars in free time allotments.
11. Way too many holidays plus spec. events and Park n Recreation freebies.
12. Sales at the auto mall and 2 shopping centers, is almost flat, straight line tax income.
13. Do we need Overnight Parking Ordinance, cost city over $300K to operate?
14. Do we need 2 Sheriff Managers, costs of $300K per manger?
15. Vendor: Valley Crest (VC) Landscape merged w/ Brickman Landscape. VC-Brickman, needs competition, as our gardening-maintenance is below the industry standards. Need to have multiple contractors maintaining the city, so ea. vendor will create competition (Vying Power) within its own districts.
16. Mandatory staffers : 32 Hrs workweek for 1-2 yrs, to save on operational cost. Make the staff pay more towards insurance premiums.
17. Stop Medical Insurance for Life to all CCC and their spouse and future spouses, if CCC member deceases.
18. Rose Parade was aborted. Stop: CWP, 4th July, Halloween Haunt, Spring Festival, Military Festivities for every national holiday. Within 7 mls to east, city has Disneyland for entertainment and stop all of the recreational activities, as cost factor would better serve community, if consideration was given to all breached PW.
All of this so, so city can balance the budget in tune of $3.8M in red-ink. City council and mayor, want to hear from its residents.Please write them to vent on overage of 2015 B U D G E T………
https://forms.cerritos.us/contact_city_council.php
40 Yrs Resident.