A judge on Thursday refused to drop Long Beach’s top tourism official from a lawsuit alleging he misspent over a million dollars in public funds and then engineered a conspiracy to fire a whistleblower who complained about it.
In his lawsuit, Paul Falzon, the former finance director for the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, alleges he uncovered $1.3 million that was improperly spent on extravagant furniture, decorations and other unauthorized purchases at the convention center.
According to Falzon, that spending was orchestrated by Long Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau president and CEO Steve Goodling, whose organization promotes the convention center and tourism in Long Beach.
Those purchases—including items like crystal chandeliers, giant stuffed animals and a $3,800 set of Italian leather chairs—were wasteful and potentially fraudulent, according to Falzon, who said many of the items could not be located at the convention center, never arrived or were sitting broken or unused in storage.
When Falzon refused to reimburse Goodling’s organization for the purchases, Goodling got him fired, the lawsuit alleges. Goodling was able to do this, Falzon alleges, because of the political clout he had in Long Beach, which he was going to use to get the convention center operator’s lucrative contract with the city extended.
“Goodling managed, operated and ran the Convention Center and its Funds like it was his own personal checking account,” Falzon’s lawsuit...
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