A former Inglewood city employee is claiming she was fired after blowing the whistle on the city illegally using money in an attempt to get an NFL team.
According to Larry Altman of the Daily Breeze, Barbara Ohno has filed a lawsuit claiming she was axed after noticing the city misappropriated funds in an attempt to land the St. Louis Rams. She said when she notified city officials, she was fired.
“I was told to stand down, look the other way and be a team player because when Inglewood got the Rams, there would be so much money coming in, no one would care how the city ran its finances,” Ohno said in a statement released by her attorney, Bruce Ishimatsu. “I refused to comply with what I was told was the ‘plantation mentality’ in Inglewood and got fired for it.”
The Los Angeles Times further reports Ohno alleges the city was not in great financial shape and used federal and state grant money and money seized from crime enforcement operations to cover the costs. Inglewood mayor James Butts vehemently denied the claims, saying there were “totally baseless and without any merit.”
“The city undergoes rigorous and thorough audits by an outside audit firm,” he said in a statement. “We are proud of the improvements made during my tenure in not only improving its reserves, but our financial reporting procedures.”
If the lawsuits claims are accurate, the city of Los Angeles illegally went out of its way in an attempt to get an NFL team. While getting a team is a big deal and a good thing for the city financially, they shouldn’t have to illegally use funds that are allocated for other things to get it done. If Ohno is right, those who moved around funds are going to be in big trouble.
The Rams will start playing in Inglewood in 2019.
