A city hall insider leaves two high profile gigs and lots of questions

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY

Chris Pook was yukking it up pretty good in the foyer of city council chambers on April 15. Inside, city auditor Laura Doud had just told the council that Pook had stiffed the city for $37,000 while operating the Long Beach Sea Festival without official oversight and while spending $273,000 in city money and using city-paid staff. Yet here was Pook, shaking hands and slapping backs with city hall allies such as Parks & Recreation chief Phil Hester and councilman Gary DeLong, both of whom had left the meeting to join in the gabby good time.

But Pook’s expression changed and his lips sealed when I approached to ask him why.

“No comment, no comment, no comment,” he chanted, moving for the door. When I persisted, he asked irritably, “Why do you keep asking when I say, ‘No comment’?”

Perhaps because, after all these years, somebody ought to. Bafflingly, a day after Doud released her disturbing audit and Pook’s posse went home laughing, the Press-Telegram’s front-page headline reported: “Sea Fest ‘doing well.’”

That’s pretty much how it’s been for Pook since he founded the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1975 and rose steadily to become Long Beach’s most famous promoter and its best-connected political insider. But not quite so much lately. Since Pook ended his 27-year relationship with the Grand Prix, his career path—and his success rate—has been as jagged as an electrocardiogram: auto racing circuit CEO, tourist bureau chief, Olympic Trials swimming advocate, political campaign moneyman. And it just zig-zagged again.

The District has learned that Pook abruptly quit as chairman of the Salvation Army’s fundraising committee for the proposed Kroc Corps Community Center earlier this month. A few weeks before, just as unexpectedly, he announced his resignation, effective in September, as executive director of the Sea Festival.

The simultaneous departures don’t appear connected, but they seem to have something in common: controversy erupts around Pook inside public or charitable organizations wherever there’s money.

A source close to the Salvation Army says Pook quit in anger when board members rejected a bid by Long Beach, Inc.—the public-private economic development organization he co-founded with then-mayor Beverly O’Neill in 1997—for the contract to handle public relations and marketing for the Kroc Community Center. Instead, the Salvation Army chose the Lamont Group, headed by Evan Lamont, son of former Press-Telegram publisher Ian Lamont.

“Chris threw a fit over [Long Beach, Inc.] not getting the award, and quit the fundraising committee,” said a source familiar with the 16-member fundraising committee Pook headed.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, predicted that when Pook’s “resignation is officially announced, they’re going to say he is leaving because of health reasons.”

In 2006, Pook appeared at the forefront of the Salvation Army’s three-year drive to raise $25 million needed to qualify for a $70 million grant from the estate of the late Joan Kroc (widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc). The Salvation Army intends to use the cash to help build a 19-acre, state-of-the-art community center at Chittick Field, near Walnut Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway. Pook was selected because of his reputed collection of big-money contacts.

But Pook appears to have made little progress. “To my knowledge, he hasn’t done anything—no money, no connections,” the source told The District. “A 36-month drive is now down to about 20 months.”

Pook bailed on the Salvation Army about the same time Doud announced the Sea Festival’s $37,000 debt to the city. Sea Festival officials disagree with her. They contend their contractual debt was waived by the city—perhaps the same way former City Manager Jerry Miller disregarded the bidding process to hand Pook the contract in the first place, then allowed him to run the festival for nearly two years without signing it. Pook’s connections got him that special treatment, too. On May 3, 2005, Miller told the City Council, “I thought that his [Pook’s] skills were so unique, frankly, based on his track record here in the City of Long Beach, that they warranted my consideration of him.”

But Pook’s ballyhooed reputation has been a bust for Sea Fest. Rather than corporate sponsorships, the summer-long collection of events has leaned heavily on the city for money and staffing. The District revealed most of this almost a year ago (“You’ve Been Pook’d,” May 9, 2007).

But Doud’s audit goes further, suggesting that Pook’s fast-and-loose operation of the Sea Festival is symptomatic of a larger civic problem: “Specifically, we found that the city may not be identifying and recovering all incremental costs attributable to privately held events,” her report said. In other words, certain private-sector insiders in Long Beach use public resources without oversight. Clearly unsettled by Doud’s audit, the council voted to consider her list of recommendations, including the demand for the $37,000.

Pook has nothing to say—not to The District, anyway—and that, as much as anything, underscores the biggest trouble with public-private partnerships. A city official would be obliged to explain to the public how its money was spent. Not Pook.

“No comment, no comment,” he continued to chant as he walked off into the night. “No comment, no comment, no comment.”

Tags: Chris Pook, city auditor, Long Beach, long beach grand prix, Sea Festival