Cities Finances

The county's auditor has informed leaders of cities across the county that a disbursement of property tax revenue scheduled for Friday will be smaller than anticipated, prompting reactions of disappointment Wednesday from officials awaiting a badly needed infusion of cash. In a letter dated Tuesday, Auditor-Controller Steve E.

In the late 1970s when Edward I. Koch won his first term as mayor of New York, the city was in shambles, its coffers and confidence sapped by financial crises and a paralyzing blackout. It needed a fighter and found one in Koch, a well-practiced pol with the determination - and bite - of a bulldog. He steered the city out of bankruptcy and restored its swagger, a one-man cheerleading squad who personified the witty and feisty New Yorker. The three-term mayor of New York and perennial civic combatant, who rallied and riled the city in and out of office with his tenacious style and irrepressible opinions, died Friday of congestive heart failure at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital, said his friend and spokesman George Arzt.

A coalition of Southeast area cities used a big pink piggy bank to dramatize their complaint that the state is taking the cities' redevelopment money to help balance its budget. City officials put oversized checks, representing more than $17 million in forced contributions to the state budget, in the piggy bank Thursday in Signal Hill. The protest was aimed at Gov. Pete Wilson and state legislators. "Why is this pig fat? Because all of our money is going into it," said Todd W.

In the highest-profile debate so far in the Los Angeles mayoral race, three longtime city officials defended their records Monday night as two long-shot challengers accused them of putting the city on a path to insolvency. The city's chronic budget shortfalls dominated the event at UCLA's Royce Hall, televised live on KNBC-TV Channel 4. Entertainment lawyer Kevin James and technology executive Emanuel Pleitez sought to maximize the free media exposure, portraying themselves as fresh alternatives to business as usual at City Hall.

For city budget-makers strapped for cash, there is so much to be said for slapping a tax on utility bills that five San Gabriel Valley cities have done it in the past year, and others are considering the possibility, despite the political risk. City officials say the tax has these advantages: * It is easy to administer because utility companies send out the bills, collect the money and forward it to city coffers.

The phone call jolted Janet Bainbridge from her sleep. Had she heard that her former business partner, investment adviser Steven David Wymer, was accused of making $113 million of taxpayer money disappear without a trace? "My first thought was: I bet he was playing the futures market uncovered, and lost it there," said Bainbridge. But Bainbridge's shock was tempered by a sickening sense of deja vu.

Citing concerns that the recently approved Proposition 218 will hamstring the ability of local government to raise tax revenues, Moody's Investors Service on Thursday downgraded Anaheim's bond rating. Anaheim becomes the fifth California city hit with a lower rating from Moody's since the passage of Proposition 218. Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Fresno also have seen their credit ratings decline since voters approved the anti-tax measure in November.

Securities and Exchange Commission officials said Friday that the amount of client money missing from the two companies controlled by Irvine investment adviser Steven D. Wymer could exceed $75 million, and that up to $200 million in funds that had been under Wymer's direct control could be in jeopardy.

Orange County on Tuesday won Bankruptcy Court approval to disburse $5.7 billion to more than 200 cash-strapped cities, schools and government agencies, staving off a possibly devastating string of municipal defaults and bankruptcies. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John E. Ryan approved the complex agreement during a five-hour hearing that overflowed from his courtroom into two nearby rooms.

The 25,000 or so folks who call Cookeville home are not preternaturally opposed to big corporations. To the contrary, none of the seven banks in town are locally owned anymore and they haven't suffered for business as a result. Similarly, you wouldn't know there were any family-owned eateries from the solid wall of fast-food joints that lines the stretch of road between town square and the interstate. But the residents draw the line at franchised health care.

Eric T. Fresch, the former top Vernon official whose tenure became a lightning rod in last year's effort to disincorporate the small industrial city, was found dead at a state park in the Bay Area, officials said Friday. The body of Fresch, 58, was discovered by rangers Thursday evening at Angel Island State Park, which is located in San Francisco Bay not far from Fresch's home in Tiburon. Tiburon Battalion Chief Ed Lynch said Fresch had been cycling around the island with his wife before they got separated.

Oxnard City Manager Ed Sotelo, long at odds with the city's mayor, was placed on paid leave Tuesday, after the ninth City Council meeting to discuss his tenure. The action, during a closed-door session, came as Ventura County prosecutors continue a lengthy investigation into the city's finances. City Atty. Alan Holmberg said Tuesday that Sotelo's leave is unrelated to the Ventura County district attorney's investigation. The probe, which started in August 2010 with local and federal investigators searching City Hall and the homes of top city officials, initially focused on a $250-million water project but has since broadened.

The city of Vernon has spent more than $3 million over the last five years providing home renovations and reduced rents for top officials, their relatives and other tenants of city-owned properties. The vast majority of Vernon's roughly 100 residents live in city-owned properties, an unusual arrangement that has long generated accusations that the city's leaders are able to select and control their electorate. It has been nearly 40 years since a new candidate was elected to serve on the Vernon City Council.

The state Legislature approved an audit of the city of Vernon on Thursday, a week after lawmakers rejected a controversial plan to disband the city. The audit, requested by state Sen. Kevin De León (D-Los Angeles), will examine the city's finances and conduct over the last five years as well as its ongoing reforms, De León's office said. It is expected to be completed in April. De León's request came in response to a Times' story on recent investment losses in Vernon's power business.

As the Bell City Council prepared to debate drastic budget cuts Thursday night to stave off bankruptcy, the city's top administrator said its finances were even more desperate than suspected and were worsening because of extraordinary legal bills and other costs facing the scandal-scarred city. "The city has reached a financial crossroad," wrote Pedro Carrillo, Bell's interim chief administrative officer. "While the recommendations set forth in this report require difficult decisions to be made, without these actions, the city will likely be forced into insolvency.

State auditors say they have received dozens of reports suggesting that the kind of mismanagement and fraud found in Bell may be occurring elsewhere in the state and that they want new authority to launch investigations into possible wrongdoing. State Controller John Chiang is in discussions with Gov. Jerry Brown to give Chiang's office added legal tools and more staff to dig into the finances of cities and other municipal agencies, officials said at a legislative hearing Tuesday.

A federal judge Monday set Sept. 15 as the date Newport Beach investment adviser Steven D. Wymer will stand trial on charges he stole $113 million from clients. Prosecutors allege that the money disappeared while Wymer was supposedly investing it in federal Treasury bonds for about 100 cities in Iowa and California, including Orange. It isn't clear where the money went, since prosecutors are still trying to trace it.

While he was stopped at a red light with his wife and 6-year-old son earlier this month, Oklahoma businessman David Sullivan felt the bullets from a 9-millimeter pistol ripping his chest open. En route to a favorite restaurant during a family vacation, Sullivan, 42, got caught in the cross-fire of a shootout by rival gangs. Twenty-two such groups prey on the streets of this blue-collar city of 58,632 in the shadow of San Diego.

A week after a report by the state controller labeled the independent audits of Bell a "rubber stamp," several cities are questioning their relationship with the well-known accounting firm responsible for the work. Officials in Riverside decided last week not to include Mayer Hoffman McCann among firms it has asked to submit proposals for a new auditing contract, even though the firm was the city's auditor for the last five years. Officials at CalPERS, the retirement fund for state and many municipal employees, are reviewing the report's findings.

The scandal in the city of Bell has resulted in seven separate investigations and one round of criminal charges against former City Administrator Robert Rizzo and other current and former officials. But year after year, during a period marked by record salaries, illegal taxes, loans to insiders and arbitrary fees on businesses, the city's outside auditors, Mayer Hoffman McCann, gave Bell's financial record a clean bill of health. And Bell is far from being alone, according to a Times review of state and local records, which found that the independent audits that public agencies in California are legally required to obtain frequently fail to flag cases of fraud and mismanagement.