The California political class is agog with news that SanTana Mayor Don Papi Pulido was scheduled to receive a $500,000 bonus if the sale of state buildings to private hands went through–that is, until the Don Papi magnanimously announced it was no longer to be. But that doesn't remove Pulido's legwork for the winning consortium, California First, LLC, or the fact that one of the investors listed by the state as part of the group is Belgravia Capital, the firm of South County multimillionaire R.J. Brandes.
Ladies and cabrones: meet Don Papi Pulido's ultimate boss.
]
Pulido and Brandes have a relationship that goes back years, one that appears almost every election cycle, when Belgravia and Brandes donate mucho dinero to the Don Papi's reelection funds. But the connection is much deeper: Pulido draws a direct paycheck from Brandes-backed companies. On the Form 700 statement of economic interest Pulido filed with the city this year, he lists RTP Controls and Belstarr Sports Management LLC as firms for which he consulted, to the tune of somewhere between $10,000 and $100,000. The latter is Brandes' company for managing the various equestrian events that he organizes; the former is based out of Georgia and partially owned by Brandes' Gatekeeper Systems. Brandes also has served as RTP Controls' chairman.
RTP Controls also shows up on Pulido's Form 700 last year, according to documents obtained by the Weekly. And it also showed up in the Don Papi's 2008 Form 700 (the year Gatekeeper acquired a minority stake in the company), along with Hydrogen Capital, another company headed by Brandes for which Pulido received between $10,000 and $100,000 in consulting fees.
So what was going to happen, until the Los Angeles Times broke the story and Pulido magically came to his senses, was that California taxpayers were going to give half-a-mil to someone for helping coordinate a sale of state properties to a group involving his boss. NIIIIIIIIIIICE…and this is an all-Democrat affair, baby.
One Reply to “Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido Claims He No Longer Will Receive $500,000 for Helping His Boss Buy State-Owned Buildings”