Upland...The City of Gracious Living Falls From Grace....

Many times I have pointed the finger at Upland City Hall as being part to blame for the problems Upland Cascade Mobile Home Park residents are facing.  For years they have been made aware of our park owners questionable business practices yet the City of Upland has failed to lend its residents any support.  In past posts I have pointed out that the City of Upland's motto is "The City of Gracious Living" and that to many of the City's residents, this motto appears only to apply to homeless animals and wealthy developers.  Well recent news indicates that the City of Upland has had a hard fall from grace and that my feelings about wealthy developers may not be too far off base.  

An excerpt from one of the recent Inland Valley Daily Bulletin articles follows: 

FBI probe involves several Upland businesses

"UPLAND - The FBI and IRS investigation that closed City Hall for an entire day Thursday is a far-reaching one that involves not only the mayor but a number of businesses and business owners in the region.
According to an FBI search warrant served to Mayor John Pomierski on Thursday to support the seizure of his cell phone, investigators were seeking records related to a number of businesses and people including Chronic Cantina, JH Builders, Upland Market Place and many others.
The records - including e-mails, text messages and address lists - are described as evidence of violations, including conspiracy, extortion, bribery, fraud, money laundering and racketeering, according to the search warrant.
When reached for comment on Friday, Pomierski deferred comments to his attorney Robert Schauer.
"I truly believe what's going to come out of this is nothing," Schauer said. "When all the smoke clears, you'll see there isn't anything there."

A team of more than 40 FBI and IRS agents on Thursday seized boxes of evidence at four locations - City Hall, Pomierski's home, JH Builders and Statewide Bancorp" 

Now this is exciting...I have always been of the opinion that our mayor is an arrogant buck-passing sob and it does my heart good to see that he is now caught up in something that could conceivably lead to jail time.   Possible "conspiracy, extortion, bribery, fraud, money laundering AND racketeering" sounds pretty serious to me and if they have or will invoke the RICO Act any who knowingly participated might find themselves cellmates with the mayor.

And what about the mayor's lawyer, Robert Schauer???  Isn't this the same Mr. Schauer who is a member of the City of Upland's planning commission and who caused such an uproar when he used the "N-word" during a February 8, 2010 city council meeting?  Class acts here.

Remember, it's the FBI and IRS (Federal agencies) that locked down City Hall from 9:00am to 10:00pm on Thursday while they searched for evidence.  This is not something these agencies do in a frivolous manner without some kind of proof of wrong doing.  City business came to a halt while the agencies searched and carried away boxes of material.   Who knows what will be found in those boxes?  I'll bet a lot of sphincter muscles tightened up at the news of this.