June 14--Six Los Angeles Animal Services captains returned to work this week after being cleared of any wrongdoing for improper vending machine contracts during "Pizzagate."
Five captains and a director of field operations had been on paid administrative leave for 17 weeks during a Los Angeles police probe. Another captain had sat home 11 months.
The cost of their combined paid leave: $426,000, union officials calculated.
"There's nothing there," said Victor Gordo, an attorney for the Laborers' International Union of North America, Local 777, which represents the captains. "(It) was spent while these people were sitting at home.
"Combine that with the dollars spent during its investigation, and this was truly a waste of taxpayers' money and resources."
Brenda Barnette, director of animal services, suspended most of the captains on Feb. 12 and called them back to work on Monday. They make up to $75,000 a year to oversee each shelter. The director of field operations makes up to $120,000, according to Gordo.
Barnette did not return calls for comment.
Barnette had relieved the captains for allegedly engaging in a shelter tradition of negotiating informal contracts with vending machine companies to raise money for shelter benefits.
The vending machines were employed by the commanders to provide petty cash for shelter decorations, prizes and pizza for shelter workers and volunteers.
They were told that
they had violated a state conflict-of-interest law that says workers can't personally benefit from any contracts they implement.
Their crime, explained to them by a police detective: They had eaten shelter pizza they'd helped buy by contracting for the vending machines.
"The great pizza caper," Gordo said, "turned out to be the great pizza blunder."
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Copyright 2012 - Daily News, Los Angeles
