This petition is in support of removing the City Manager and replacing him with someone that really cares about everyone in our community.

In my view the current City Manager has abused his power by providing personal favors, financing, terms and conditions to his local supporters without providing the same opportunities to everyone else in the community.

These are my reasons for why this petition matters to me and should matter to you.

1) Claim That City Manager arranged a deal to sell City property with less favorable terms and price than City could have recieved to a local Realtor/political supporter.

City Manager was responsible and directly involved in at least 1 Real Estate sale whereby lucrative multi-acre City Of Livingston owned Real Estate was sold to local Realtor and City Manager friend/supporter Realtor Diego Castillo in a highly unusual "City Financed" transaction. Typically empty land requires at least 50% down yet Mr. Castillo was able to purchase the property with much less down and have The City of Livingston act as the bank and actually financed the sale for the Realtor. Did the City of Livingston take a credit application from the buyer?  Was this offering of financing offered to anyone else in the community? Were these highly unusual and favorable terms noted in the For Sale listing so that normal citizens could have made an offer? Perhaps the City would have recieved even greater offer for this property had these types of unusual terms been advertised. Does the City Manager work for Diego Castillo or for The City of Livingston?

2) City Manager supported/approved The City of Livingston Public Works Department to act as Private Works in conducting janitorial/clean up services on private property owned by private citizen/friend/political supporter WITHOUT requiring said person to compensate City of Livingston for such services.

Is this City Policy? Can we all call Public Works to do our private clean up? I have been informed that Public Works has cleaned up private property in the past but those persons, unlike City Manager friend/political supporters, they recieved a bill for the cleanup.  The use of City tax payed resources, employees, equipment and knowledge for personal private gain for his friend/political supporters of The City Manager is unacceptable and constitutes corruption as far as my personal view is concerned. 

3) Downtown Livingston:

Our beloved downtown has been in decline for many years and the City Manager has allowed it to happen. He was involved in a study which pointed out how Blue Diamond walked away from Livingston due to the downtown zoning yet he has failed to adress the issues.. In fact downtown Livingston is more dangerous now than it was when he first started working as City Manager. I know that I have personally tried to work with the City Manager to make the corner of B and Main Street safer but have not recieved the support his local friends recieve. In fact my project was sabotaged at every step and the dangerous corner and empty building continues just like the many empty buildings in downtown.  Meanwhile I have recieved offers to buy our property from supporters of the City Manager at a low price while my efforts are being sabotaged.

4) The recall:

4 of of the 5 City of Livingston City Council Members are being recalled and it is my FIRM BELIEF that the City Manager, working alongside Councilmember Jose Moran, County Supervisor Rodrigo Espinoza, former Mayor Gurpal Samra and others are working feverishly to have these 4 City Council members removed so they do not peer into the corruption that has been taking place.  The City Council members that are being recalled are some of The City of Livingston's greatest assets with one being a Merced County Sherrifs Deputy and former United States Marine, A current volunteer firefighter and strong supporter of local youth sports, our only female City council person who is pro business and strong supporter of our veterans community and our only Indian City Councilmember, a family man that has, with dignity, weathered so many lies against him. 

5) Livingston Union School District Interference 

The Livingston Union School District, has had many employees of theirs Interfere and even threaten the current City Council. I believe this to be encouraged by the City Manager on projects such as mine that he does not support. 

6) Parks and Recreation Department

In my view the Parks and Recreation Department is ran by people who encourage harrassment of our citizens. I myself have been harrassed by the children of the current employee leading the Parks and Recreation Department. The Parks and Recreation's toxic atmosphere has lead to Parks and Recreation not sustaining itself financially, while at the same denigrating improvement projects such as the one I have proposed. This toxic atmosphere is a result of The City Manager allowing employees to go home early, while being paid their full days pay amongst other costly decisions. A new City Manager will be able to clean house, adress these issues and bring a new work ethic, culture and attitude to our city. It is no surprise that the liason to the Parks and recreation department is Councilman Jose Moran, who I not only believe is personally behind the recall but also continues to sabotage our improvement project for downtown Livingston

My name is Dwight Larks and I care about my community and want our community to rid itself of the toxic influences attempting to intimidate, corrupt, denigrate, embarrass and harrass our City Council and City. Please sign, share and support removing the City Manager and removing those in positions of power that seek to recall these Council members in order to hide and continue the corruption.