A union in one California city is being criticized for reckless spending after hiring a private investigator to search for high school students suspected of stealing signs.
Parents say the city of Costa Mesa’s employee union hired a private investigator to search whether high school students stole union signs that read “Cancel the layoff.”
Robert Murtha, Sr. and Linda Tenno say investigator George Rowell came to their homes and questioned their sons about the missing signs, without their consent. Peter Foy, California chairman of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), deems the union’s action inappropriate.
“If they have an issue like that, they could talk to the police,” he contends. “They could do whatever they had to do to make it the right way, and then talk to parents and say, ‘This is what’s going on.'”
Both parents told the Orange County Register that Rowell said he was hired by the employee union. But Foy suggests the union should have spent its money to get to the bottom of bigger issues.
“Use the money to figure out exactly what we’re doing here in California, what Costa Mesa is doing that’s causing their budgets to be so upside down,” he urges. “That’s where we [ought] to be spending our money,” he adds.
