Today’s ethical lapse comes to us courtesy of the Fullerton Fire Department. See those shirts pictured above? Fire Captain Brian Seymour ordered nine of them for some kind of “Peer Support”.
Once the use tax is factored in, we paid about $40 per shirt.
Check out the reconciliation report. One can clearly see the purchaser was Brian Seymour.
Below, we see the invoice from the vendor, Linksoul, where the salesperson was Mary Seymour. Wait a minute, that must be a coincidence. No City employee would be foolish enough to use taxpayer money to purchase unnecessary clothing from a relative’s clothing business, right?
Mary Seymour is the Fire Captain’s wife. Linksoul is a clothing company started by her brother. A couple minutes with Google was enough to locate this article from Carlsbad Magazine with a quote about nepotism that couldn’t be more ironic under the circumstances.
So while the City of Fullerton prepares to be crushed under the weight of CalPERS pension obligations, we have people like Brian Seymour not just wasting our money — he’s sending cash to his wife’s family business.
Brian Seymour made $294,761 last year in pay and benefits. Why didn’t he pay for these shirts with his own money?
Did anyone make him reimburse the City? Whose idea were these shirts, anyway? Perhaps most important is why didn’t it occur to Brian Seymour that sending money to the family business was improper, and likely a violation of City policy and/or State Law?
Thanks to a certain FFD employee for bringing this to our attention. You know who you are.