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Council Meeting Tonite. Injured Workers Will Speak

Dina Padilla

California Insurance Commissioner Candidate

7564 Watson Way
Citrus Heights, Ca.
95610-2111

tele: (916) 725-2673 fax: dinajpadilla@gmail.com

www.padilla4insurancecommissioner.com

August 17, 2010

Mayor Don Higginson

City of Poway City Hall

13325 Civic Center Drive

Poway, California 92064 y

Council Member Merrilee Boyack

Council Member Jim Cunningham

Council Member Carl Kruse

Council Member John Mullin

Re: $3 million in taxpayer redevelopment funds to a Poway
business that has: i.) harmed the health of employees via a
known environmental work exposure; ii.) has attempted to
shift the cost burden of the injuries onto CA taxpayers;
and iii.) has attempted to intimidate an employee into
silence by threat of libel from the workers comp attorney.

Honorable Mayor Higginson and Poway City Council Members,

My name is Dina Padilla. I am running for California
Insurance Commissioner for the Peace and Freedom party. My
primary area of interest that caused me to run for this
position is my deep concern for workers’ rights, health and
safety, being adversely impacted by rampant, questionable
insurer practices in the State of California.

I am concerned of not only the adverse impact this is
having on the injured workers and their families
themselves, but also the cost burden it is placing on the
taxpayers of the State of California. When employers and
their insurers are able to successfully game the workers
comp system to deny their financial responsibility to
injured workers, these injured workers and their families
end up on depending of state and federally funded programs
for survival. The taxpayers are footing the bill.

According to Governor Schwarzenegger, when addressing the
California Chamber of Commerce in May of this year,
Workers’ Comp “Reform” has given back or saved California
industries and their insurers $50 billion since the Ca
Senate Bill 899 was implemented in 2004. However,
California is now $20 billion dollars in debt with much of
the problem being our now beleaguered state disability
fund.

As the saying goes, “Think globally. Act locally.” It has
been brought to my attention that the City of Poway is
intending to give the owners of Toyota of Poway $3 million
dollars of taxpayer dollars in the name of redevelopment.
Questions should be asked of these new business partners of
Poway regarding how they handle injured worker claims.

Is the City of Poway aware that these same owners appear to
have:

i.) knowingly exposed employees to the health hazard of a
moldy building; and

ii.) have fired no less than one of the employees injured
by the moldy building; and

iii) have attempted to run from their responsibility to
this injured worker by attempting to deny his workers comp
claim, running him through the gaunlet; and

iv.) have attempted to shift the cost burden for this
injured employee onto state disability funds; and

v.) are documented as threatening this employee via their
workers comp legal counsel, with libel for daring to inform
his prior fellow employees, fellow human beings, of the
potential long term health threat to which Toyota of Poway
is continuing to expose them?

Does the City of Poway condone this type of behavior among
businesses with whom they intend to partner while using
taxpayer funds? I am not inclined to believe this is the
case. Poway and its leaders have a well respected
reputation of doing what is in the best interest for the
residents and taxpayers of Poway.

I am aware there are senior residences within close
proximity of the new body shop that is to be built by
Toyota of Poway with a portion of the redevelopment
funds. What has the City of Poway done to assure that
their new business partners, Toyota of Poway, will protect
the health, safety and welfare of the Poway area residents
from body shop contaminants, better than Toyota of Poway
has demonstrated they protect the health, safety and
welfare of its own employees?

I urge you to investigate this matter further before you
choose to allocate $3 million Poway taxpayer dollars to a
business that has demonstrated they have little regard for
the use of taxpayer dollars if it means they can shift
their responsibility for environmental exposures and
resultant illnesses on to the taxpayers of California.

Attached are letters I have sent this week regarding the
matter of Toyota of Poway being indicative of how commerce
is gaming the workers comp insurance system to: SD County
District Attorney, Bonnie Dumanis, CA Commissioner of
Insurance, Steve Poizner; and CA Attorney General Jerry
Brown. Also attached is the attempted threat into silence
of injured worker, Tim Hack, by Toyota of Poway’s workers’
comp insurer, “legal” counsel, Ms. Amy Lessa, Fisher &
Phillips LLP.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this very
serious matter. By properly addressing how taxpayer
dollars are used by businesses in Poway and what are the
businesses’ societal responsibilities to the workers and
citizens of Poway before you allocate dollars; you are
helping all injured workers, citizens and taxpayers of
California.

Sincerely,

Dina Padilla

Enclosure
(4)

http://freepdfhosting.com/44ece198ea.pdf

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