Modesto’s Police Chief Used Public Funds to Hide Energy Theft By Chamber CEO
By Emerson Drake 
In a Public Record Request (PPR) just received yesterday it was revealed that Modesto Police Chief Galen Carroll is using taxpayer money from his budget to pay for electricity being stolen by Chamber of Commerce CEO Cecil Russell for his gated community’s security cameras.
We’ve told this story before but the recent developments are disturbing to say the least. In July/August of 2016, Cecil Russell fronting for the his Chateau Provence Homeowners Association, used Rank Security to mount three cameras from city light poles and then had Rank’s workforce illegally tie into the poll’s power supply without Modesto Irrigation Districts’ knowledge or approval. This theft of electricity went unnoticed until a sharp eyed MID worker spotted the illegal cameras and power hook-ups.
In an email to the city December 6th, 2016, MID pointed out the theft and asked the city to make the appropriate disconnect. In a series of emails obtained through a PPR it was learned that city staff was preparing to unhook the illegal instillation until the MPD Chief Galen Carroll intervened. This was all documented in our 3/3/2017 story. We also learned that Chamber lobbyist and CEO Russell had not applied for any of the easily available permits despite suggestions to the contrary by Chief Carroll.
Why the deception? As Dave Boring (member of the Chamber of Commerce) told the Council a few weeks ago: “We’re the movers and shakers, you need to take care of us”, talk about self entitled. The way we see it the only thing that makes sense is they just didn’t care. After all if you have the Police Chief pulling strings to keep your little project afloat (by avoiding being arrested and by paying for electricity) and away from the public eye, why bother following the law. And don’t buy the story that there should be an easier way to get this approved because only an elitist wouldn’t even bother to pull the necessary paperwork to apply, which by the way was discovered in another PPR.
Grand Theft? Well if you total the monies owed to MID and now the city for the illegal instillation, electricity theft, meter instillation and having to rewire at least one of the connections for being faulty, it comes to significantly more than the $1,000 threshold required by law for Grand Theft.
The most current claim they are making, which we’ve only heard since this malfeasance of using public funds to pay for a politically connected, well-to-do gated community’s electric bill, is the city is going to create a program where the city will have the camera’s bill sent to them for the gated subdivision to pay. But why the delay you ask? After all the theft has been going on for over 14 months and the city has been paying for over 6 months. We don’t have the answer to that but the city started paying the bill in May and is still paying the bill and yet there’s no program for reimbursement. It seems the only thing moving them forward is us exposing what’s been going on.
So you probably won’t surprised to learn the Graceada Park camera bill has been going to the city and hasn’t been being paid by Rank Security like you’ve been told (yes the Bee was given erroneous information too).
Just so you know the City Council has been made aware several times of the electricity theft by the Chamber’s CEO. It is one of the reasons Councilman Bill Zoslocki melted down at a recent City Council meeting and started attacking the citizen informing them. But we can’t say for sure if they were aware of the MPD using taxpayer money to support certain ‘special’ neighborhoods electric bills. We do know that Joe Lopez has been aware the whole time and it’s just another reason to pass on him for the Permanent City Manager position.
It’s time for the silence to end.
Eye On Modesto 