Everyone expected the Great Park Audit to snare OC politicos. No one expected San Juan Capistrano’s mayor to be one of them.
The Great Park Audit Update at the most recent Irvine City Council meeting covered familiar ground. Forde & Mollrich are being difficult. The auditors found more examples of poor management and improper oversight. The closeout contract for the Design Studio is problematic, creating a major legal vulnerability for Larry Agran.
There was one new name, however: Sam Allevato.
Sam has had a colorful public life. He was an Irvine police officer for 33 years, serving as the public information officer until his retirement in 2002. He worked for Forde & Mollrich full time on Great Park issues and was elected to the San Juan Capistrano City Council in 2008.
Nominally a Republican, Sam has a history of working with Larry Agran. I recall him appearing on an 2010 anti-Jeff Lalloway hit mailer. In 2012 he ran for Mayor of San Juan Capistrano with Diane Harkey‘s vigorous support. The OC GOP endorsement should have been a slam dunk, but Irvine’s Allan Bartlett spoke up. Not only was Sam denied the endorsement, he did not even get a majority of the votes. Diane Harkey was livid.
Once Sam became mayor, Sam was the subject of a recall effort due to his handling of water issues. Apparently, he’s tight with Dave Ellis.
But what does that have to do with Great Park?
In February of 2008, the San Juan Capistrano City Council voted to give a Redevelopment Authority contract to Yehudi Gaffen‘s Gafcon. Sam did not recuse himself, even though at the time Sam was a full-time employee for Forde & Mollrich. Forde & Mollrich, in turn, was a sub-contractor to the Great Park Design Studio, which was owned by Yehudi Gaffen and run by Gafcon — an obvious conflict of interest. [1]
This previously-undisclosed conflict is presumably of interest to the fine citizens of San Juan Capistrano. More immediately, the Great Park sub-consultant contract clearly prohibits such conflicts, which the auditors made a special point of highlighting. I predict Sam will be joining Larry Agran, Yehudi Gaffen, and Brendan McDevitt in spending many unhappy hours with lawyers in the coming year.
While we wait for Sam’s deposition to appear on the City Of Irvine web site, let’s share our favorite stories about Sam Allevato, Diane Harkey, and Dave Ellis. Isn’t funny how the same names keep popping up ?
—-
[1] Anthony Taylor of Aleshire & Wynder lays out the case starting at 1:57:55.
By definition, anyone who is pals with Harkey and/or Ellis has a problem. But yeah.
now you are picking on my mom and my uncle
I live in San Juan, and have watched the council majority of Allevato and his cohorts, Larry Kramer and John Taylor, vote as a block on issues they should have recused themselves from. For example, just this past Tuesday, they were asked to recuse themselves from voting on the sheriffs contract ($8 million a year, for a town of 34,000) because the union donated heavily to all three of their campaigns. Sam Allevato accepted $5000 last year from the OCSD sheriffs union to oppose his recall. He refused to recuse himself, saying he’s proud of the support from the rank and file. The Lt. makes $325,000/yr, sergeants make $275,000/yr. Gee, that “support” wouldn’t have anything to do with approving that sky-high contract, would it?
Someone asked recently: How does a retired cop afford to buy a $1.5 million home in a swanky new, gated neighborhood in San Juan? Maybe this audit will provide an answer.
We all watched as Allevato, Kramer and Taylor called a closed door meeting and then order “Community Common Sense”, a local paper, to be removed from all city property. This was a violation of the first ammendment. Of course Allevato used 70K dollars in legal fees from the cities pocket to defend his decision. The judge ruled he was wrong. Our city taxes had to pay Sam Allevato’s legal fee’s then and for every legal blunder Sam has made.God help us if the city of San Juan Capistrano has to pay to defend Allevato on the conflict of interest while employed at the Great Park. If we had the collective legal fees generated while Sam Allevato has been in office, we as a city could have purchased the Vermeulen land and built a ‘central park’ instead of Laguna Glen. Now, just as the good ole boys planned, Spieker Development will build another Laguna Woods jammed into 35 acres on Del Obispo street. Can you hear the earth movers. They start at 7:30 every morning. Beep Beep Beep.
I ran the recall against Sam. He raised $78,000 in unrestricted contributions from Police and Firefighter PAC,s developers, land owners, and attorneys to fight the recall. David Ellis was recruited to help with the hit pieces against community members that had nothing to do with the recall effort. Sam and his City Council buddies, Taylor and Kramer, stood behind our petition circulators at Von’s market telling the people not to sign. I filed a police report citing harassment but the police declined to investigate. A real surprise.
Sam deserves a lot of grief because of his misdeeds in Irvine.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving public servant. Do I hear hard drives crashing down at city hall?
Don’t forget that Sam was the ring leader of the ill fated attempt to ban newspapers, in particular, Community Common Sense. He had no qualms quashing the First Amendment rights of new publishers in San Juan Capistrano in order to silence well deserved criticism and ridicule.
Sam is like a cockroach, he can’t stand to have the rock overturned and to be exposed to the (public) light.
That was a great moment in time when the whole Central Committee listened to what I had to say about how Sam was connected to Larry Agran and all the corruption going on in Irvine and agreed with me. Very happy he did not even come close to getting the needed votes for endorsement.
Thank you Allan Bartlett! You’ve rendered a great service to the people of San Juan, and to the county taxpayers, who no doubt would have had Allevato feeding at their trough in the future if not for you exposing what a fraud he is.
Unfortunately he managed to squeak by in the 2012 city council election with about 235 votes (mostly provisional ballots cast/counted at the eleventh hour), so we’re stuck with him for another 2 years, but I think his days in politics are numbered. One can only hope.
Who will guard the guards… when officials collude to cheat the public? Sam’s public record is a shameful litany of back room deals like the “Riding Park” and the water plant that benefit friends like Mr. Moiso at the expense of SJC residents.
The SJC city council meetings have been running our town like the old west. I think Kramer and Taylor should be investigated too. Who knows everyone involved in this water scam, land deal, and rezone? Sam didn’t approve that land deal on la pata alone. Round em up. Maybe they will all move to another city. Bakersfield or San Pedro maybe.
I’m thinking we need a SJC blogger on this blog.
SJC is tied into the huge money issues of Rancho Mission Viejo development and expansion of the prima Deschecha landfill.
It helps to have good friends on the SJC City Council.
Let me guess:
The “good friends” all have ties to Arnold Forde.
Or is this there someone else more central?
I just watched the video of the Irvine Council meeting. That Larry Agran is a piece of work. How many millions were wasted or disappeared (was it 38?) and the guy has the nerve to complain that people are asking questions? Then he lines up speakers to complain, and tried to introduce a serial video in their favor, that one speaker pointed out Agran (or Gafcon?) had produced by a firm in San Diego.
No wonder they called this project The Great Pork. I think it refers to the long line of trough feeders. My sense is that this is government corruption at its worst.
My bad; the amount that disappeared sounds more like $200 million. Funny that Council member Beth Krom said that they were working for the people. Ha!
The most dishonest comment made by Agran was when he said that Sam Allevato is distinguished. The only thing distinguishable about Allevato is the extent of his cronyism and his ability to screw over his constituents in order to favor the select few; something Agran seems to be very familiar with.
” his ability to screw over his constituents in order to favor the select few”
I would love to hear more stories about this. Feel free to post them. Of, if you prefer, I can contact you privately.
Sam Allevato was the spokesperson for the Design Studio from 2007 to 2010. The design studio was a joint venture with Gafcon and master designer Ken Smith. If Mr. Allevato voted on a contract in 2008 for Gafcon while at the same time he was working for Gafcon (through the joint venture of “design Studio”), he would clearly have known that his vote to hire Gafcon would be a conflict of interest. Right?
Yehudi Gaffen perfected the “political friend” game in San Diego over the last 20 years. Gaffen’s “crisis manager, AZ” succeeded at silencing the people of SD. OC folks you’re experiencing a master at work and what you’ve uncovered is just the tip of the iceberg!
Money and Power have proven there is no such thing as a “Conflict of Interest!”
march 24, 2008 Orange county register (“Great Park team getting smaller”).This article regarding the Design Studio was some lighthearted reporting about Great park employees attempts to lose weight. The employees were doing their own version of the Biggest Loser, aptly called “the great Loser” in order to lose weight.
Quote: “The design team split in two, with 10 members on the Gafcon team (including spokesman Sam Allevato) and 10 on the Ken Smith Landscape Architect team.”
Question: Didn’t Mr. Allevato claim he didn’t know Gafcon was his employer? How can this be?
Good find.
Indeed.
Oops.