Baldwin Park City Council Appoints New City Manager With a History of Incompetence and Financial Mismanagement; Manuel Carrillo Suspected of Spiking Pay to Increase His Retirement Pay.

Baldwin Park City Council, after the resignation of its last City Manager, Enrique Zaldivar, appoints Manuel Carrillo, Jr. as new city manager. Carrillo has a history of incompetence and financial mismanagement. 

In May 29, 2015 - the Legal Lens accused Carrillo of laundering money through a sham nonprofit called the Baldwin Park Community Center Corporation ("BPCCC"). At the core of the allegation is that Carrillo has been allegedly laundering money through the BPCCC by running a sham event called the Santa Clothes Program. At that event, over $20,000 of gift cards would be purchased at Walmart. A few children would receive some. And the rest of those gift cards, tens of thousands of dollars worth, cannot be accounted for.

When the Legal Lens asked for him to account for the monies, he provided it a sham list of over 600 children. Many of the names have been confirmed to be non-existent, meaning those kids didn't exist.

As a result of the Legal Lens's reporting, the State of California dissolved the BPCCC. Instead, now, the City started a new nonprofit called the Baldwin Park Charitable Relief Foundation, which appears to be a slush fund for the council members. Carrillo is also a director of this nonprofit.

Also around 2014, staff revolted against Carrillo for paying them minimum wage, while he was the most overpaid parks and recreation director in Southern California. Carrillo gave a boxing coach, who worked there for around 20 years, a 40 cent raise an hour. At this revolt, staff complained that Carrillo was incompetent and uneducated.

The boxing program also protested Carrillo in 2013, which led to the program being open today. Carrillo's intention was to shut down the program and give the equipment for free to his cronies.

Others have complained that Carrillo stole from City funds when the City paid for gas, which was used for personal travel.

More recently, Carrillo has not done enough to protect the boxing program from an accused pedophile.

Cell phone records reveal that Carrillo was talking daily with disgraced Council Member Ricardo Pacheco, who has pled guilty to taking bribes.

Under Carrillo's management, both Barnes Park and Morgan Park have deteriorated. Barnes Park is notable for criminal loitering and drug activity.

Carrillo currently fails to account for where the money goes to from the parks and recreation program. Also, it appears that a lot of the grant money to parks is also accounted for.

It's suspected that Carrillo wants a bigger pay as City Manager, so he can retire at a higher pay, which is calculated by the last three years of one's salary.

In general, the Legal Lens rates Carrillo as an "F" for City Manager.