Holden Calls Probe of Brookins ‘a Gimmick’
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African Methodist Episcopal Church leaders and Councilman Nate Holden on Friday defended a controversial education and job training program that operates out of a building owned by Bishop H.H. Brookins.
“This is a gimmick,” Holden said of a city investigation that concluded Brookins had “obscured” from the city his ownership of a Southwest Los Angeles office complex that housed the program.
The program was stripped of its $87,142-a-year city contract last month. The Community Development Department said Brookins had a conflict of interest as owner of the building and head of the program while he received rent from the city, and that he listed the building’s owner as a nonexistent California church corporation before he acquired the property in his own name.
But Rev. Larry Kirkland, a member of Southern California Conference AME Church, said the church owned the building until it was sold in 1984.
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