Sorry we lied. But can we have just one more chance?

Does he think we are blind:

Huh? Why not say he voted for Harmony? It should be the "achievement" he is most proud of. Zero Debt? What?? What about the millions in unfunded pensions, what about the millions in RDA debt, what about all the other debt?

Integrity? Please!!! What about the additional deputies? Oh my, his version of "fiscal sound management" is code for "tax increase." The poor man didn't even know how much of the budget is used for police and fire protection.

One thing he is telling truth about, he does have 24 years of experience. I would say it is more accurate to say he has one year of experience repeated 24 times.

Look through website. See if you agree with his personal assessment.

See the "Cifuentes" tab. Did he commit perjury?

UPDATE: MR CIFUENTES REGISTERS TO VOTE ON 9/26/2016!!

This acknowledges he was not a registered voter up until 9/26/2016 and that he probably committed perjury.

Debate is Now Set!

You will be able to see the debate on KCAA. Next Week.

DEBATE POWERPOINT: DEBATE_POWERPOINT

THE BIG LIE (NICE AND SIMPLE):

The city claims that for the last six years there has been NO money available to pay for any additional deputies. The city has had 22 deputies for the last 6+ years and each additional deputy costs about $175K per year. Yet the city has enjoyed a $20.5 million dollar surplus over this period, wasted millions of dollars, and will be handing out about 9.8% raises over the next two years to already overpaid and underworked city employees, employees whose pensions are going to bankrupt the city (recall San Bernardino). The individuals above are simply putting the welfare of the city employee's FIRST and the welfare of the citizens LAST.

See item #1 below and tabs "Taxes Part 1" and "Taxes Part 2" for a complete explanation.

In the final analysis, the individuals above will not hire more deputies until the citizens agree to pay higher taxes, taxes that are not needed. It really doesn't matter whether they are inept or dishonest, they should not be reelected.

PURPOSE OF THE SITE

The purpose of this website is to convince Highland’s citizens to NOT reelect any of the current council members for the reasons described below and detailed in the various tabs. All of the individuals above have been running Highland for years. The gentleman in the middle is Mr Racadio, and he was the city's first city manager and is currently living off his city supplied pension of $176K per year. We understand he will not run, and we understand Jody Scott will not run, second from the left. Penny Lilburn, first from the left, was first elected in 2004 and is the Executive Director of the Highland Senior Center, and she wants to be mayor. The problem with Ms Lilburn is the city is paying the Highland Senior Center $24,000 per year but the services the center is suppose to provided are not being provide, yet Ms Lilburn received a $10,000 bonus in 2015. The contract between the city and the center has blatant misstatements that should have been caught and Ms Lilburn not surprising votes to give the center the money. Ms Lilburn is being investigated by the county.

John Timmer, first from the right, was first elected in 1992, and he receives about a $125K state pension, which affords him the time to be on the council. Other than he lots of free time, he has no qualifications for the job. He lied to the public about the need for a tax increase and then claimed he was misquoted. He supports a tax increase. We think he will run. Mr. McCallon, second from the right, was elected in 2002 and will probably also run. He now is a AQMD Board Member so he must have lots of time to sit on boards. Joe Hughes is the current city manager, aka at the "CEO." He took over for Sam Racadio a number of years ago and has been at the city since 1988. Betty Hughes the City Clerk is Joe Hughes' wife, and she has been around since 1989. Previously she was employed in various secretarial positions. We don't know if her being married to Joe helped get her the job as City Clerk, but it probably secures it no matter how inept she may be. Joe and Betty are being paid by the tax payers around $400K per year and they effectively run the city. They don't live in the city of Highland.

Because of a recent lawsuit against the city, there are now 5 voting districts. District 1 and 2 are new and have no incumbents. District 3 is Penny Lilburn's district. District 4 is John Timmer's district, and District 5 is Larry McCallon's district. I looks like they want to hold power, i.e. 3-2. We encourage ANYONE who would like to run for one of the five new districts to contact us. See the "Districts" tab for candidate information. We have the names and addresses of all voters in these districts and we can combine resources.

This is the city's code of ethics: CODE OF ETHICS. Afer reviewing the contents of this site, you will come to the conclusion it is just claptrap. The citizens are being sold out.

BREAKING NEWS: McCALLON CONTINUES THE LIES

Mr. McCallon on May 24, 2016 gave what appeared to be a "state of the city" speech. See coverage of the speech in the Redlands Daily Facts: McCallon Speech He continued to disseminate the same lies used to try sell a tax increase that being costs for police protection are rapidly increasing and no one knows where the money will come from. He points out that $8.4 million of the city's budget for the general fund is for police protection. The actual number is $8.6 (See DataForMcCallonStateofTheCitySpeech) The budget for the general fund for fiscal year ending 6/30/2016 is $14.9 million. That he is not stating is the actual contract amount is $7,762,397 for the fiscal year ending 6/30/2016 (See the amounts from the ACTUAL contract), and this is for 22 deputies. This represents a 5.3% increase over the prior two contract years. This is LESS than the 5.8% increase for all the cities contracting with the county for police services and is much less than Yucaipa's increase of 7.2%. To our knowledge Yucaipa didn't seek a tax increase.

What he is not telling you is the budget amount of $8.6 millions appears to have been inflated form the prior budget period and that looking at budgets and at funds individually is misleading. Budgets are prepared of two year periods. The budget for police services for the budget period 2014-2015 was $7,753,580. That is a $857,150 increase or 11.1% increase, but the actual increase is only 5.3% WHY? We submitted a public records request to find out how the $8.6 million was determined. We will keep you posted. (UPDATE 7/10/2016: Chuck Dantuono refused to support the number, meaning the number is made up. It is not true.)

Finally, Mr McCallon continues the same lie that the city has no debt. The city has debt on the books for the city employees' pensions. The amount recorded is $3,935,677 (see the city financials StatementOfNetPosition) and this most likely is materially understated since CALPERS will not have a return of 7.5%, which the current liability is based on. The amount is most likely north of $8 million and the city issued $63M+ in bonds. See "McCallon Statement" below (#3) for a YouTube video where McCallon purports that the city has "No Debt."

There is plenty of money to add additional deputies. Each additional deputy costs about $175K per year and if the city had been managed correctly, one to two deputies should have been added per year. But this has not happened so we must assume there must be higher priorities, e.g. giving raises, funding pensions, paying for the waste, etc. Mr. McCallon needs to find something else to do. He clearly at best inept and at worst corrupt. See #1 below and the "Taxes Part I and II" tabs for information on the city affording more deputies.

CONTENTS OF THE SITE

The "Districts" tab contains information about the districts including number of voters by party and sex and about running for one of the district seats.
The "RDA Data" tab contains information on Highland's RDA. The RDA could be another Beaumont.
The "Missing Assets" tab contains information on Highlands missing property.
The "Background Info" tab contains information about Highland's Pensions and personnel information.
The "Center Corruption" tab contains information on Highland Senior Center
The "Taxes Part I and Part II" tabs contain information on the council's attempt to raise taxes. Lies and more Lies.
The "Forged Timecards" tab contains information on the forged time cards.
The "Contact Us" tab contains information on us including contact information.
The "Blog" tab contains a blog that you can comment on anything on this site.

Below is a summary of why the current council members should not be elected. We have obtained significant information via public records requests and have a number of outstanding requests. We will make new requests as needed.

IMPORTANT:

If anything we allege anywhere in website is incorrect we will immediately fix it. We present supporting documentation for all of our allegations.

WHY THE COUNCIL MEMBERS SHOULD NOT BE REELETED

1. They deceitfully attempted to raise taxes. The city spent $29,000 on a survey to determine if citizens would agree to a 22.2% per year increase in property taxes. According to contract with the firm who conducted the survey, 400 randomly selected voters were surveyed. These selected voters were then asked three times if they would vote for an $113 annual per parcel tax increase, but they were never told this represented 22.2% increase in property taxes, the city has had a $20.5+ million dollar surplus over the last six years, crime in the city has decreased by 40% since 2010, and city employees will enjoy a 9.8% pay increase over next two years. The average city employee will be making $122,673 per year including lavish benefits and a guaranteed lifetime pension. Instead, the selected voters were told blatant, outrages lies in attempt to convince and scare them into agreeing a tax increase is needed.

Even with these lies and omitted information, only 65% of the selected voters supported the tax increase and a 2/3 majority would be needed because of Proposition 13. Penny Lilburn and John Timmer who are the Public Safety Tax Ad Hoc Committee recommended the measure not be placed on the November 2016 ballot. They originally recommended the $29,000 be spent on the survey. We speculate both will seek reelection and running on a tax increase is not feasible. We will make sure they will be running ONLY on this tax increase. To keep the possibility of putting the tax increase on the ballot in the future, Joe Hughes, John Timmer, and Penny Lilburn doubled down on the lies told in survey by claiming the city is spending $100K per year in unnecessary overtime due to the lack of deputies. This is another blatant lie. We obtained overtime reports directly from the Sheriff’s department, and overtime hours for uniformed officers have DECREASED by 33.6% since 2011. Folks they want your money by “hook or crook.”

2. They cannot account for millions of dollars of city property The citizens since the founding of the city have invested according to the city’s 2015 annual audited financial report, i.e. the Comprehensive Financial Annual Report for fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, in roads, bridges, buildings, equipment, cars, trucks, computers, etc. Some of this was by grants, but most was paid for directly by citizens. After depreciation, these items represent 80% of everything the city owns. When Chuck Dantuono, Director of Administrative Services/City Treasurer, was asked for a list of these items along with their costs and acquisition date, such a list is a public record, he said he had no complete list and requested meeting so he could “explain” why no list exists. Such a list MUST exist per accounting regulations, and its absence represents either a severe deficiency in record keeping or an attempt to hide purchases that are either inappropriate, fraudulent, or reckless. We filed a complaint with the state accounting board and the matter is being investigated.

3. They put citizens in massive debt. The council likes to claim how fiscally sound the city is. They claim the city has "no debt” because they “pay as you go,” which means they basically pay cash and take on no long term debt. On page 14 of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for 6/30/2015 this statement was made: “The City has no debt! It is a long standing policy of the City Council since the incorporation to have a “pay as you go” philosophy.” Well this not is not exactly true. There is lots of debt! Millions of dollars of debt! But technically, as we understand the situation, the city does not owe the money. The citizens owe the money! In June, 2004 bonds totaling $17,525,000 were issued; in December, 2004 bonds $totaling $3,690,000 was issued; and in June 2007 bonds totaling $42,645,000 were issued. The total of the bonds issued is $63,860,000 or about $1,183 per each citizen. These bonds are scheduled to be paid off by 2038 (LOL!).

This was done through the city’s Redevelopment Agency (RDA) which was run by the city council and is a completely separate entity. What is terrifying is that they needed nobody's permission to issue this debt. Since the city doesn’t make the payments, the citizens do through their property taxes, the citizens owe money. So technically since the city doesn’t owe the money, it can be claimed the city has “No Debt.” Got it? This YouTube video of Larry McCallon explaining how the city has no debt and how the city's finances are stellar provides clarity of this hypocrisy: McCallon Statement.

Just to give some perspective, Yucaipa has issued only $8,489,786 in bonds through its RDA or only $165 per citizen. Thank goodness RDAs were discontinued state wide in 2012 and have been turned over to successor agencies, which are, ironically, run by the by the same city councils that ran the now closed RDAs. We understand these successor agency cannot issue new debt but must wind down the prior RDAs.

The purpose the proceeds, i.e. the $63,860,000, was suppose to be to develop areas deemed “blighted” and to provide low income housing. The council in the infinite wisdom declared about half the city “blighted” including the areas around Lowes and most of the east and west sides of the city. So what did citizens get with all this money? Massive building projects? Nope. As of 6/30/2011, they spent only $3,092,164. They bought a park and athletic center for $405,000, and senior housing for about $1,400,000 and the balance was used to purchase vacant land, some of which to build a new fire station. How does that help property values? It gets worse. Between 2005 and 2012, the property taxes collected for the RDA amounted to $63,434,349 but only $28,140,144 was paid for principal and interest. This means $35,294,205 in excess property taxes was collected. As of 6/30/2011, the RDA had cash funds of $58,453,010 on hand. So what happened to $37,609,031 ($35,294,205 + $63,860,000 - $3,092,164 - $58,453,010)?

For 2011, investment income was $71,451 and property taxes were $3,081,884 for a total of $3,153,335. But interest was $4,191,165, leaving a deficit of $1,037,420, which had to come out of principal. In other words, the property taxes are not even covering the bonds interest expense for 2011!
We have a number of public records requests outstanding because we need more information. Why, for example, was there $7,431,970 spent on community development and $1,109,475 spent on “Administration” in 2011. One strange transaction we noted is that the city loaned the RDA $6,021,420 but when the money was returned, the state made the city give it back to the successor agency. We will find out why. The $63,860,000 is a fiasco and there is nobody to blame but the current council members.

4. They agreed to pay lavish pensions to city employees and these pensions have put the city in unnecessary debt, have crowded out other higher priorities, e.g. additional officers, and have risked bankruptcy in the future. Because of accounting regulations prior to 2015, unfunded pensions didn’t need to be recorded in published financial reports. But they do now. As officially reported in 6/30/2014, citizens owe the city’s current and past employees $3,353,067 for their pensions (unfunded liability) and other post-employment benefits. What this means is that the city has promised to pay current and past employees far more money than there is money available to pay. This is real debt because if the money is not paid into the pension plan, it will go broke. Mr. Racadio, current council member and prior city manager, is owed $173,490 per year alone and this amount is owed for the rest of Mr Racadio’s life. He is under 60 years old.

The $3,353,067 is based on pension funds invested having a return of 7.5%. CALPERS is going to use an investment return of 6.5% to estimate unfunded pension liabilities in the future, and if that return had been used, the unfunded pension liability would be $5,295,763. CALPERS only had a return of 2.4% for fiscal year ending 6/30/2015, so even the $5,295,763 is too conservative. The amount really could be closer to $7-$8 million if the returns don’t meet the 6.5% return and city employees receive future pay raises. Most will be able to retire at 55 with 2% of their ending salaries times the number of years of service.

Do you know anyone in the private sector that gets a similar pension? Lets not fall for the "they are committing their lives to the city" argument. That only works if the they are receiving less than they could make otherwise. They can't. These are LAVISH pensions, the same ones that bankrupted San Bernardino. Since there is only a limited amount of money to go around the available money needs to spent on the citizen’s first, second, and third priorities. The current retirement plan needs to be replaced with a 401K type plan. This would eliminate the possibility of an unfunded pension liability that WILL bankrupt and destroy the city. If any of the current employees choose to leave, we would wish them the best of luck.

5. They are paying money to the Highland Senior Center and this money was used for a kickback to pay a $10,000 bonus to Penny Lilburn in 2015. She is the center’s executive director and is a council member. San Bernardino County receives a grant from the Housing and Urban Development called a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). CDBGs have been around since the 70s. The county distributes some of this grant to the City of Highland who in turn distributes to various organizations that use the money for various projects. One of these organizations is the Highland Senior Center and it receives annually $24,000. Penny Lilburn is both the “Executive Director” of the center and a council member. The city has signed a contract with the center related to the usage of this money. We believe this arrangement is a conflict of interest and violates Government Code 1090. But more importantly, Ms. Lilburn received a $10,000 bonus in 2015 of which, based on the IRS 990 form for 6/30/2015, the bonus could not have been afforded without the $24,000 payment from the city. This means $10,000 of the $24,000 went into Ms. Lilburn pocket! Could it be any worse than a possible violation of the law and Ms. Lilburn pocketing $10,000 of the grant in 2015? Yes it can.

The contract between the city and the center specifies the center must provide transportation services to an average of 400 seniors per month. Seniors are to be driven to doctor’s appointments, the store, the bank, etc. Based on the information provided to the city for July 2015 – December 2015, the center is paid $2,000 per month and submits supporting documentation purporting to show the money should be paid, the center provided transportation services to less than 50 seniors per month!; Some months the number was not even reported. The center should never have been paid but they were.

Finally, in the contract between the city and center, the center indicated the total revenue for center was doing to be $194,000 including the $24,000 received. This is gross understatement. The actual revenue reported by the center on its 6/30/2015 IRS form 990 which was signed by Ms. Lilburn was $417,796. The contract, interestingly, was not signed by Ms. Lilburn but by the Board Chair, one John Rago, on 5/13/2015. Having Mr. Rago sign the contract maybe is an attempt to hide the obvious conflict of interest. The gross understatement of revenue appears to be attempt ensure the $24,000 would be paid to the center. If the actual revenue amount were reported, $417,796, it could easily be seen the money was not really needed and should be used to for other purposes, e.g. housing vouchers for the homeless. If one were to show on a loan application income that was off by 100%, he would be accused of fraud.

6. They allowed employee time cards to be forged. We obtained the time cards for all the hourly employees for pay periods 3/11/2016 and 3/11/2016. We were surprised the city doesn’t use a time clock, but instead employees just write in their time. The problem with this is that there is no way to know if these hours were actually worked. This is especially a problem given Joe Hughes’ signature was forged on all the time cards. We compare the signature on the time cards to Mr Hughes’ signature that is on numerous other documents, and it is virtually impossible that Mr Hughes signed any of the time cards as appears to be required. We requested the payroll registers to verify the correct hours were actually paid.

Friends of Highland (Amigos de Highland)

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