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Mayor Bradley's First Scandal At City Hall
posted (March 16, 2012)
One of the first things Darrell Bradley had to do when he became mayor was suspend pay mistress Shirlene Sabal. You'll may remember her; she made the news in late 2010 when the owner of First Stop Pawn Stop alleged that she had been shorting his company of thousands of dollars. At the time she defended herself and so did the council, but right now - she stands alone, accused of engineering a daring scheme that cost the council tens of thousands of dollars in bogus overtime payments.

We can only give the outline of the scheme at this time sicne it is under investigation, but it is a priority for new Mayor Darrell Bradley - who spoke to us about it today:..

Darrell Bradley, Mayor
"Immediately as I got into office I was told about what had transpired, and first thing we took a decision to send her on suspension and we are conducting an investigation. We think that, that investigation would be finish by next week Friday and base on that investigation, we are going to take a tough decision in terms of her and also putting in place mechanisms. This is why we need the auditing team right now and we are also looking at putting in place financial provisions in the finance department to ensure that things like this don't happen."

Jules Vasquez
"You have any idea, what was the quantum of the money fleece?"

Darrell Bradley, Mayor
"It's a significant amount, I don't want to disclose any information until the investigation is complete and when the investigation is complete, I will be more than happy to share with you the report of the investigation."

Jules Vasquez
"Are you incline to pursue criminal charges?"

Darrell Bradley, Mayor
"We are incline to pursue all avenues available to us at law, If we find out that it is a substantial amount and that this thing did in fact happened, I am not saying anything pending the outcome of the investigation, we will go after this person to recover as much of the funds that we can because this is not our money, this is the peoples' money and they have put us as stewards of their money and they deserve to get it back, if in fact it's a substantial amount we are talking about."

We'll let you know what those audit findings are next week. But this is just one scheme, or scam being carried out at a city council which has been beset by a legion of similar woes over time.

The mismanagement and misappropriation has happened in places high and low - under councils red and blue, and much of it speaks to a culture of corruption that has set in. Mayor Bradley says it is a legitimate concern that must be addressed.

Jules Vasquez
"Many public services are available for a price."

Darrell Bradley, Mayor
"Public services?"

Jules Vasquez
"Yes they are available for a hustle, you could hustle anything. You could hustle a piece of land; if you get a ticket you could hustle around that ticket."

Darrell Bradley, Mayor
"We want to stop those things."

Jules Vasquez
"That's my question. How do you clean up a culture that has become corrupt over time?"

Darrell Bradley, Mayor
"Well it's tough, I must tell you that, since being in the council we have been confronted on certain things and we have had to take a firm stand to say that we won't write off any tickets, we won't adjust anybody's property taxes, the law is what the law is. We have to be fair, we have to be transparent and we have to be across the board and this again is why we are trying to put in place systems to take the politics out of it. So that a councilor or a city officer or anybody can't just go to somebody and say well write this off and write that off. If that happens then the Major will know and I can put a stop to it right away."

A Deputy Mayor will be elected on Monday.

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