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WGBPA may request a criminal probe into finances
Waligore: Some checks remain unaccounted for
By Kate Carter
The Willow Glen Business and Professional Association may ask for a criminal investigation into the association's sloppy bookkeeping, president Bob Waligore said.
The announcement came at the association's Dec. 13 board meeting, when Waligore said the executive board had found "irregularities" in the organization's financial records, going back three years.
Waligore told The Resident that the committee was concerned that former business manager Demetri Rizos may have written outgoing checks that weren't for business association expenses.
"There are some discrepancies between what is in the check ledger and the actual checks," Waligore said. "There were a number of checks that were written that we have questions about the legitimacy of what they were written for. We have enough information to cause us concern that something might have been done. I'm stressing might."
Rizos did not return phone calls made to his home.
Waligore said Rizos was the only person who signed checks for the association. Rizos resigned from his position last January.
Waligore said that since he became president last March, all checks from the business association have required signatures by two board members.
He said the association's secretary, Blaine Fields, contacted the district attorney's office about their concerns. Waligore said a representative of the district attorney's office told Fields the association needed to submit copies of the checks in question.
Waligore said the association was waiting for the Bank of America, in which they have their account, to send them copies of "at least 50 checks" that go back over a year, because the association is missing them from its records. He said he didn't know when the association would receive the copies or when they would submit them to the district attorney's office.
Waligore wouldn't say how much the checks were for or whom Fields had spoken to at the district attorney's office.
Waligore said he had contacted the city's office of economic development about the committee's concerns because the business association oversees the use of Business Investment District (BID) funds. Lincoln Avenue businesses between Minnesota and Coe avenues pay money each year to the city office. The city then returns that money to the business association when the association submits invoices for some of its expenditures.
Waligore said Janet Kern, an attorney with the city's redevelopment agency who works with the office of economic development on BID items, told him that if the problems the executive committee had found were real, the business association might not be allowed to oversee the BID funds.
However, Nanci Klein, economic development officer with the office of economic development, said they had already reviewed the association's invoices when the initial concerns of mishandled money were raised over a year ago. At that time, she said the office found everything to be in order.
Klein said the office only looks through the portion of the association's budget that the association submits to them for BID reimbursements. The city has no authority over money the association has raised for itself through fundraisers and events, she said.
She said the office had been contacted by Waligore and that they would be looking through the invoices again. But she said she did not expect to find any problems.
"On our part, it looks as though everything is fine," she said. "It's potentially not a large amount of money, if anything."
She said that no one from her office would have told Waligore that the business association might not be allowed to use the business district's BID funds.
"We wouldn't say, 'We're putting you out of business,' " she said. "We see that business district as critical, as almost a second downtown. We would only want to see that things are working as they should be."
Waligore said the association is trying to complete their bookkeeping records in order to file a tax return this year.
"We have to state categories of expenditure, and some of this stuff just doesn't fit," he said.
Waligore said they also want to make sure business association members know where their money is.
"This is a responsibility we have to our members, bringing it to light," he said.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
