Not too long after the DA issued a warning to the city of Walnut for alleged state open meeting law violations, Rick McKee with the government watchdog group Californians Aware is accusing the City Council of doing it again.

The initial DA warning was prompted by an Aug. 13 meeting in which the council went into closed session to discuss the qualifications of a certain employee to act as “liaison to the City of Industry with respect to pending projects of concern to Walnut.”

Instead, in the meeting, council members were polled by Mayor Joaquin Lim on whether they would support a resolution to oppose the construction of an NFL stadium in neighboring Industry, according to this story by reporter Bethania Palma.

Well according to a complaint sent to the city by McKee very early this morning, the council took action on yet another four unagendized items relating the proposed NFL stadium at its Sept. 24 meeting.

City administration acknowledges that, on September 24, 2008, “the City Council took action to establish a citizen’s task Force as a five member panel charged with monitoring the proposed stadium project and providing the City Council with advisory input.” (Agenda Backup, Item 8, October 8, 2008.)

Thus effectively, by employing surprise, the Council’s discussion and action on these four unagendized items of business denied the people their right to proper notice, thereby depriving interested members of the public the opportunity to comment directly to the City Council on these items before action was taken – – rights guaranteed by the Brown Act ( 54954.2 and 54954.3) and Article 1, section 3 of the California Constitution.

Most disconcerting is the fact that these violations come only 14 after the Council’s warning by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office of the Council’s Brown Act violations of August 13.

Cure Demanded: The City Council, as required by 54960.1, shall rescind the action taken on each of these four non-agendized items of business, identified above.

The complaint was also sent to the DA’s public integrity unit.

I’m sure we’ll be following this story today….

In the meantime, here’s the complaint:Walnut_-_Brown_Act_Demand_10-6-08-1.doc

Here are the top SGV stories today:

The county budget is taking a $128 million hit now that the Governor approved the state’s budget. Here’s the story.

The Walnut City Council opposed to the NFL stadium. This is the first city to oppose it. Monterey Park and West Covina city councils both passed ordinances approving the stadium, Bethania Markus-Palma reports.

The state Department of Public Health faulted Citrus Valley Health Partners in connection with its employees’ use of fake CPR cards, Tania Chatila reports.

AQMD hearings continue regarding El-Monte based Gregg Industries, Rebecca Kimitch reports.

Hundreds of residents attended the Walnut City Council meeting last night to express their opposition to a proposed NFL stadium in the City of Industry. According to a news update written by reporter Bethania Palma:

The majority of residents in attendance opposed the project, wearing stickers that read “No stadium.” Many voiced concerns about traffic, noise, pollution and increased crime in their city.

“The reality is if this stadium is not stopped our quality of life will be completely destroyed,” said resident Shiuh-Ming Ellis. “Walnut will become a suburban slum.”

Open Forum: What impact would an NFL stadium have on your community?

Not everyone is excited about Ed Roski’s proposed NFL stadium. Take residents June Wentworth, Shiuh-Moing Ellis, Rex Yee, Lucy Pao, and Lawrence Reinhold, for example. These five submitted a letter to the editor calling on residents to come to Walnut’s council meeting on Wednesday to protest the proposed stadium.

This is the same stadium that is causing trouble among the Walnut City Council, and is reason for an alleged Brown Act violation that led to a slap on the wrist from the District Attorney’s office.

Here’s the letter that ran today:

Speak against stadium

We urge all Walnut residents to come to the Walnut City Council meeting on Wednesday at 7 p.m. to speak out on the proposed NFL stadium to be built in the city of Industry.

Based on reading the Draft Supplemental Environmental Report (DEIR), listening to the developer’s presentation and applying our own experiences, in our opinion, the proposed stadium project will significantly and negatively impact Walnut.

The City will derive no benefit from the project, other than in the most general sense which in our view, equates to inconsequential probabilities.

As Walnut residents we must protect our most significant assets: our homes, our families and our quality of life. These are community values worth fighting for. We will not apologize for fighting and protecting our homes, our families and our city.

We do not accept claims that resident arguments regarding the NFL stadium and its impact on the city are coming from uninformed citizenry that just don’t get it and just don’t understand what’s good for them. We all have the right to oppose this project.

We believe Walnut residents know exactly what they are fighting for, particularly if given quality information in a timely manner.

We say, residents, trust your knowledge, trust your experience, trust yourselves! Thirty percent of Walnut residents have a bachelor’s degree, 9 percent have a master’s degree and 3.5 percent have degrees beyond a master’s.

We are leaders. We know what we want. We can see the truth!

Speak out on this issue! It is not a done deal. We can oppose this project even though it is not in Walnut’s jurisdiction.

Tell the Walnut City Council that we expect them to protect our homes, our families and our quality of life. Tell them that we do not want the negative impacts to our community the NFL stadium project will cause.

Tell the Walnut City Council to oppose the stadium.

June Wentworth, former mayor, Shiuh-Ming Ellis, Rex Yee, Lucy Pao, Lawrence Reinhold, Walnut

The LA County DA’s office apparently gave the Walnut City Council a warning after it allegedly violated the Brown Act.

Reporter Bethania Palma is working on the story. She said City Council members noted on a recent agenda that they would be reviewing certain city employees’ qualifications to act as consultants on the NFL stadium.

Instead, they polled individual council members on whether they would be in favor of the stadium.

Tsk, tsk.

I got this e-mail from “Peter the Great” about a series of articles we did on Edward Romero:

You have wasted time writing an article on pastor Edward Romero who wanted to gain name recognition by going to Beijing and trashing a hotel room. You should not glorify his action of property destruction to reach his goals. There is no place in his church or in your newspaper for his criminal behaviour.

There are 1.3 billion Chinese. Let them take care of themselves. There was no need for pastor Romero to destroy property, and for you to write about it.

I paid a visit to La Puente pastor and Mt. Sac professor Eddie Romero today.

He had a lot of interesting stories to tell about his time in China, and going into hiding after vandalizing two Beijing hotel rooms in opposition to Chinese oppression. (Romero likes to call it “morphing.”)

Romero hid from Chinese authorities for 18 days. Turns out he stumbled upon an enclosed, overgrown garden area on a Chinese military compound on the outskirts of Beijing.

He found a ditch and called it home until after the Olympics were over, when he turned himself in at Tiananmen Square.

Romero said he survived mostly on water, beef and turkey jerky and nutrition bars.

He also said he chewed up his cell phone’s sim card while in an interrogation room so that Chinese authorities wouldn’t get the names and numbers of people Romero was working with.

More to come in a story running this weekend.

In the meantime, here are some photos of Hacienda Christian Fellowship, where Romero has been a pastor for more than two decades.

Parishioners painted the church red in support of Romero’s efforts.

Killer bees in Covina, an alleged gang member kidnapped a customer in Alhambra and ended up with $3,000 and a few bottles of tequila, and, literally, a strong-arm robbery in Walnut.

I just received this e-mail from La Puente pastor and Mt. Sac Professor Edward Romero’s friend and unofficial spokesman:

Just gone midnight and I’ve been woken by a call from Rosie Romero telling me Eddie is on his way home and will arrive San Francisco tommorrow some time. More details as they arrive.
Tony

The message was sent at 8:30 this morning. We had heard reports yesterday that Romero had in fact – as promised – turned himself into Chinese authorities forvandalizingthe walls of two Beijing hotel rooms in opposition to Chinese oppression.

This was his last Twitter post, uploaded two days ago:

All is going as well. Last twit till surrender on sunday, 10pm Beijing time. Live audio stream of surrender atwww.exodus

8one.orgGIG

At the Web site for Romero’s project, Exodus8One.org, there apparently is audio of Romero’s surrender in Tiananmen Square (seems fitting).

Also, these pictures from the site: