Inglewood Mayor Using City Employees for Personal Political Campaign

INSIDE INGLEWOOD-Inglewood mayor James T. Butts took the time to appear at the Inglewood 5th Avenue Block Club annual party on Saturday, September 27, to promote his mayoral candidacy.

Butts, who is running for Inglewood mayor in the November general election, was introduced by his hand-picked Planning Commissioner chair, Larry Springs, a resident of Inglewood’s District 1.

Springs replaced George Dotson. Dotson was Butts’ hand-picked Inglewood District 1 council person who in June, 2013 won the position after a narrow run-off with former council person Mike Stevens.

Springs refused to introduce mayoral candidate Gil Mathieu, an Inglewood resident of more than 40 years. Mathieu lives two blocks away from Butts’ alleged residence on 102nd Street in Inglewood’s District 4.

According to signed affidavits at the LA County Clerk’s office, Butts claimed to have moved into a shed behind a residence at 2512 102nd Street in Inglewood, 90303, in mid-2010.

Accompanying Butts was his former campaign manager, Melanie McDade-Dickens, a Gardena resident. (photo above)

McDade Dickens was identified by a number of area newspapers as Butts’ “campaign office manager” in 2011. No fewer than three January, 2011 stories quote her: a San Jose Mercury News story, a January 11 story in the Daily Breeze () and a January 14 story in the Santa Monica Lookout.

According to California Form 460s dated from October 17, 2010 until December 25, 2010 and January 1 until June 30, 2012, McDade-Dickens was paid no less than $20,465 by the “James Butts for Mayor 2011” campaign for her work as a “campaign paraphernelia/misc.” work.

According to Inglewood budget documents, she is presently paid $102,276 annually for a four-day work week (Monday-Thursday).

For nearly a month, Inglewood city clerk Yvonne Horton allowed Butts to use his city hall telephone number and McDade-Dickens for his campaign answering service. (See related stories here and here .
She was also put into a richly renovated ninth-floor office at Inglewood’s city hall. The renovation was said to cost approximately $30,000. In 2013, the Morningside Park Chronicle obtained pictures of her office which appear to bear this out.

Butts has two other mayoral assistants who have yet to appear in public with him.

Formal requests to McDade, Butts and Springs regarding the block party were not answered.

(Randall Fleming is a veteran journalist and magazine publisher. He has worked at and for the New York Post, the Brooklyn Spectator and the Los Feliz Ledger. He is currently editor-in-chief at the Morningside Park Chronicle, a weekly newspaper based in Inglewood, CA and on-line at www.MorningsideParkChronicle.com.  Mr. Fleming’s views are his own and do not reflect the views of CityWatch.) Photo credit: Randall Fleming

 -cw

 

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 79

Sep 30, 2014