CA: State Tomato Board is dissolved (after state audit reveals board lived it up real good)

LA Times ^ | 4/9/08 | Jordan Rau

[NormsRevenge]

GONZALES, CALIF. -- Melanie Horwath phoned the California Tomato Board with what she assumed was a simple request. She needed promotional materials that her family's tomato packing company could display at a Salinas Valley agricultural event called Taste of the Valley.

Do you have posters or recipes? she asked.

We don't have that.

What kind of promotion do you guys do?

We don't do that kind of promotion.

That's odd, Horwath thought. Her company paid thousands of dollars a month in mandatory dues to finance the board's research and marketing efforts: its legal purpose. She started digging into the board's business to find out how it was spending her money.

More than a decade later, the tomato commission has shut down after her findings prompted a state audit.

The commission misspent members' dues on lavish conferences in Arizona and Mexico, where its families traveled free, according to the audit. It bought perks for directors and employees -- thousand-dollar dinners, a $653 Hummer stretch limousine ride, $190 bottles of wine -- and made other questionable expenditures.

The audit also detailed how the commission abetted a group of Horwath's competitors intent on setting the prices and rules for California's $505-million tomato market.

"They ran it like it was . . . their own little fiefdom," said Brian C. Leighton, the attorney for Horwath's company, Gonzales Packing Co.

[NormsRevenge]

The board may finally be stewed,, but the tomato will survive.

[ridesthemiles]

Tip of the ICEBERG....

[sheana]

lavish conferences in Arizona and Mexico, where its families traveled free, according to the audit. It bought perks for directors and employees — thousand-dollar dinners, a $653 Hummer stretch limousine ride, $190 bottles of wine —

Okay it is good that this crap is being audited but.....Congress is guilty of the same crap. Shut them down too? My answer would be yes. hehe

[dforest]

Hard to tell if the board members were fruits or just vegetables.

[darkangel82]

The rotten tomatoes went splat.

[Moose4]

Tip of the ICEBERG....

No, not lettuce. Tomatoes.

We have this romanticized image of the "family farmer," but the fact is, agriculture nowadays is dominated by giant companies as big and corrupt as anything in any other industry...all under the eye of a government that's even more corrupt.

}:-)4

[NonValueAdded]

There goes that plum appointment!

[TexGuy]

She should take the individuals to court and re-coop 'her' funds ... (sorry, it sounds like the whiny, liberal thing-to-do)

[Red Badger]

Where’s the BEEF-STEAK?!?!?!!?...........

[GulfBreeze]

I was wondering when someone would ketchup with these guys!

[ChocChipCookie]

It took a DECADE? Ten freakin’ years for them to finally get audited and shut down???

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Absolutely typical of many, many California governing and regulatory bodies. At war with the consumer, totally opaque to any outside examination, a cabal of entrenched bureaucrats seeking only to steal what they can.

[Codeflier]

What is sad is that this is only a tiny proportion of how much this type of thing occurs in government related jobs.

I bet there are many government employees that get a paycheck, but have been lost in the bureaucratic maze so they do not even show up for work anymore.

[Tijeras_Slim]

There goes that plum appointment!

Not to mention a cherry job!

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Her company paid thousands of dollars a month in mandatory dues to finance the board's research and marketing efforts: its legal purpose.

The root of the problem, I dare say.

[NonValueAdded]

Things could get ugli /obscure

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

You know, I’m a federal contractor, and everytime I have to visit a federal client, there is always some sort of meeting or conference going on. That’s about all the government likes to do when its not actively trying to screw the public, have lots of meetings and conferences.

[bamahead]

Ping...

[arthurus]

"They ran it like it was . . . their own little fiefdom,

They ran it like bureaucrats and commissars run things.