Fifty-three years. That’s how long it would take for the City of Industry to recoup the money it spent to renovate a house currently occupied by its mayor Mark Radecki.
Radecki and his wife are paying just $700 a month to lease the city-owned, 5,500-square-foot home, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. It seems like a paltry sum given the 450,000 in recent renovations, not to mention comparable leases in the area.
“If the city spends money on an investment, then they owe it to the taxpayers to obtain fair-market value as a return on that investment,” said Loyola Law School Professor Levinson who heads the Los Angeles Ethics Commission. “It strikes me as wildly inappropriate to spend city funds renovating a residence that is then used by the mayor for well below fair-market value.”
Levinson believes the mayor’s new home is part of a larger problem in Industry. The city has no standard application process for its rentals. Most of the beneficiaries are members of the city council, according to the Tribune. And none of the tenants living on Industry-owned property pay more than $700 a month.
There’s also the matter of how the renovations on Radecki’s home were approved in the first place. On the day of the vote, two members were absent and another abstained. That left a quorum of just two councilmen who approved the project. One of them was Radecki.
The mayor denies that his vote, which occurred before he lived in the house, was motivated in any way by a desire for personal gain. He also notes that Industry can be a tough place to live because of a range of environmental hazards. He says that partly accounts for the low rents.
The city’s housing program has troubles beyond Radecki’s lease. It sustained a $533,175 deficit last year and is expected to lose another $450,000 in the next fiscal year. An investigation by the Tribune also found the city could owe millions in back taxes if the subsidy qualifies as an employee benefit.
Interim City Manager Troy Helling plans to discuss improvements to the housing program next month.
“Moving forward, we have to be fiscally responsible,” Helling said. “The council is very interested in moving forward and getting this stuff done.”
Whether that will include rent increases on the city’s lessees remains unclear.