A Los Angeles city bureaucrat is under fire for securing herself an eye-watering pay raise behind closed doors -— to the tune of roughly $150,000 — even as former employees accuse her of harassment and fudging budget numbers, according to a bombshell whistleblower report.
Alma Martinez, city manager of El Monte in the San Gabriel Valley, allegedly arranged a hasty backroom deal to spike her taxpayer-sponsored pay package to a whopping $430,000 — including roughly $50,000 in back pay and other platinum perks like a car allowance and hefty severance package — in the working-class city of roughly 120,000, where the median household income hovers at about $65,000.
Martinez’s alleged conduct was detailed by whistleblower Ed Rardin, a local code enforcement officer who filed numerous complaints about Martinez to law enforcement and ethics watchdogs.
She is “the primary benefactor of a lot of El Monte shenanigans,” Rardin claims.
According to Rardin, a lifelong El Monte resident and local Latter-Day Saints Bishop, Martinez hastily convened a mystery closed-door meeting in May that immediately raised alarm bells for local watchdogs, including Mayor Jessica Ancona.
At that meeting, Rardin claims, Martinez locked in a salary bump nearly unheard of in the public sector — raising her total compensation to nearly $430,000 including benefits from $280,000, according to Mayor Jessica Ancona, who blasted the deal as a “blank check” on social media.
The sweet deal included a 25% increase...
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