SANTEE, Calif. - Sante, Calif., Sports Council President Ron Burner and a family-owned business have been fined $4,000 by a California state licensing board over a landscaping job at local West Hills High School, according to a report in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The report stated the work was part of a $350,000 city grant given to the sports group to improve athletic fields at the high school.
Burner was fined $2,000 for overseeing the project as an unlicensed contractor. American Sheet Metal, which is co-owned by Burner's brother and father, also was fined $2,000 for submitting invoices to the city under the name of Fortune Construction, which has no landscaping license.
The field-improvement grant came under fire in November 2000, according to the report, when the Sports Council treasurer said the group never received the funds. It was later revealed that Burner used the family business to bill more than $90,000 in landscaping work to the city.
Burner said volunteers and students did all the labor. However, the invoices he submitted to the city included labor costs for items such as monitoring fields and installing sprinklers.
The state Department of Industrial Relations is reviewing whether the city skirted California law that requires public works projects to be competitively bid and to involve paid laborers.
Information compiled from a report by San Diego Union-Tribune (www.uniontrib.com) Staff Writer Norberto Santana Jr.