The Redlands Daily Facts does a nice job shedding light on some of the controversies surrounding newly hired Redlands city manager N. Enrique Martinez.  The San Bernardino Sun chimes in with their editorial and pointedly question whether or not Martinez and his propensity to enlarge government is the right man for the job in a city that will potentially face a five million dollar deficit in 2009-10.

According to reports, Martinez may be willing to play fast and loose with the rules when it suits him.  There are questions of financial impropriety regarding self authorized payroll advances.  He began dating and eventually married an assistant city manager that he hired, which by his own admission would have violated a nepotism policy he was working on with his staff two months before his marriage.  He also claims to be unaware of a 1977 nepotism policy and never disclosed this relationship and marriage (until he was caught) to the Lynwood City Council.

And that leads to even more questions.  Anyone in the Inland Empire who is not familiar with Lynwood and other corrupt, third world-esque communities like Maywood, Bell Gardens, Hawaiian Gardens and Cudahy better get educated really quick.  These towns are controlled by the Mexican Mafia and the drug trade and are littered with scandal after scandal.

For an in depth look at this area of Southern California and to get an idea of where this new city manager is coming from, I suggest our readership take a look at the following links:

The Town The Law Forgot, An LA 'burb is mired in gangs, cartels and south-of-the-border style politics - LA Weekly

Lynwood Watch - A blog devoted to the happenings in Lynwood, California

Watch Our City - Another site chronicling the corruption in this area of Los Angeles

I do not know who N. Enrique Martinez is!  Nor am I suggesting that Mr. Martinez is corrupt.  However, as far as I am concerned, there should be more than red flags visible on this front; alarm bells should be ringing.  I believe a more thorough investigation needs to be conducted to make sure that we are not importing questionable ethics and corruption from Los Angeles county.