It seems a 4-1 divide within the La Puente City Council is getting deeper.

Councilwoman Lola Storing is accusing her colleagues of putting the city in jeopardy over a closed session meeting held last month.

Storing said she walked out of the April 22 meeting after City Attorney James Casso, City Manager Carol Cowley and Assistant City Manager Gregg Yamachika were asked to leave first.

She claims Mayor Louie Lujan asked the top execs and legal counsel "point blank" to leave the room. Councilman Dan Holloway said Lujan did want to discuss the items "as a council" only.

But Lujan said he never asked anyone to leave. "I asked the City Council if they were willing to discuss the item in closed session as a council only," he said.

Looks like everyone agreed except for Storing who didn't want to be back there without an attorney.

Smart move, according to Douglas Johnson, a fellow with the Rose Institute of State and Local Government who said he was "flabbergasted" (I know I must have butchered that word) after I explained the scenario. "It's not illegal, but it's risky," he said.

Look for the story in Wednesday's paper.

Posted by Tania Chatila at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You read it right, La Puente Councilwoman Lola Storing is proposing the city prohibit council members from accepting any and all contributions from contracted or prospective consultants or developers in the city --- that includes campaign contributions.

Storing said contributions "buy votes" (I can hear the gadflies and advocates for open government saying "duh" in my head).

But contributions from developers are very common - rampant actually - across the nation. Lola acknowledged that, and the hard fight it would be to actually get a measure like this passed in La Puente. She mentioned it would probably be a 4-1 vote against her proposal.

Storing might be right. A few of the council members I talked to Monday seemed hesitant. Councilman John Solis argued if they took out developer contributions from the mix, it would become so cheap to run for office that then "everyone would be doing it." Now why would we want that?

Storing's proposal goes before the council tonight. See the story in today's paper.

Posted by Tania Chatila at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)