State Wants Money Back From Nonprofit
SACRAMENTO — Four years after securing $2.2 million from the state to buy land for a soccer complex, a nonprofit Los Angeles group is being asked to return money that went to the executive director's sons, and California officials' monitoring of taxpayer funds is being questioned.
One of 80 projects paid for with "pork-barrel" grants that have drawn the attention of state auditors, the soccer site -- a clay field with six nets at Slauson Avenue and Main Street -- is far from the 800-seat recreation center envisioned by the nonprofit group Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles.
The state took $1.3 million back from Concerned Citizens last year, after discovering that the group already had bought the land with a grant from the city.
And state Department of Parks and Recreation auditors are waiting for Concerned Citizens to repay $150,000, most of which went to the sons of Juanita Tate, the group's executive director until her death last summer. The rest went mostly to consultants and contractors, according to state documents.
The group, which advocates for economic development in South-Central L.A. and manages low-income housing, has missed three deadlines for returning the money. The last one was Nov. 30.
Tate and one of her sons, Mark Williams, co-signed many of the checks that went to him, totaling $49,500, auditors found. State records show that a $63,000 payment went to the other son, the Rev. Eugene Williams.
The state had not imposed an anti-nepotism rule. Officials said they were challenging the payments because Concerned Citizens failed to prove that the money was used for acquisition of the field, as called for in Parks Department documents related to the grant.
Carl DeMaio, head of the Performance Institute, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group in San Diego, said the payments to family members and the receipt of money from both the city and the state for the same land purchase should sound "alarm bells."
"This requires a full audit, outside of the Department of Parks and Recreation," DeMaio said.
"We need better procedures in place," said state Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks).
Mark Williams, Concerned Citizens' youth program director, declined to be interviewed, but said in partial response to written questions that the organization "will resolve the grant balance" within 30 days. He said the project will cost $13 million, and the first phase will be completed in May.
