“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,….” And Charles Dickens didn’t even know about the new world and its vortex in Sunland-Tujunga.
Just when things were getting back to normal, with people doing great things, the community coming together for its yearly 4th of July celebration and the local service clubs actually working together, BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! It all went to hell in a handbag, or in our case, stolen grocery cart.
I don’t even know where to start. But I will say that I have to defend the S-T Chamber of Commerce for taking action and getting the 4th of July Fireworks project started. With cries of “They Hijacked our program” squealed Mark Siegel, the corrupt and secret group called the Sunland-Tujunga, Shadow Hills Community Fund which was created by Sonia Tatulian to funnel city funds into her own pocket until it lost its nonprofit status and was shut down by the State.
This same organization brought back into Tujunga Dan (the man) McManus to be the squeaky clean leader of the new fund. What is the fund you ask? Well, it was set up to collect money from various community projects and deliver those funds to ANY SCHOOL GROUP THAT ASKED FOR THEM! Not one penny ever was received by the Verdugo Hills High School organizations that asked for them.
But that didn’t stop the secret community fund from refusing to tell anyone who was a member. Like Dan Mc Manus, Cindy Cleghorn, Mark Siegel, Lydia Grant and a few others that really didn’t want their names known. So that brings us to the present. The fund that used to receive monies from the STNC and never had to account for them, ran the 4th of July fireworks, charged admission fees, and never reported how much they actually received. And of course, Ms. Tatulian worked the ticket gate that “lost” money. Pretty good work if you can get it.
SO YES! The chamber of commerce decided to do what’s right for the community and filed all the papers, got the permits and put the down-payment of the fireworks with the Spectacular Events Company. And YES, Ms. Tatulian was not a part of the chamber project……. Well, maybe someone felt sorry for her and let her back in. All the while the chamber was saying ‘NO, SONIA IS NOT A PART OF THE FIREWORKS PROGRAM. OK, so everybody lies to us. That’s a given. But it looks like we’re actually going to have the fireworks and IT WILL BE FREE TO THE COMMUNITY.
And the Community Fund? Well, they still won’t tell anyone who its members are. And I guess that really doesn’t matter as it is in disgrace and doesn’t have any money to disburse anyway………. Oh wait, Ms. Tatulian said that there was a “couple of thousand in the fund bank” and of course no one ever asked for the funds. It’s no secret, but the fund is now under investigation along with Ms. Tatulian. So yes, “it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light,…” and Sunland-Tujunga will really be the benefit of it all. Who knows, maybe years from now, people will be saying:
It was the water!”