Moorpark to Consider Firing Parks Commissioner

The Moorpark City Council will consider firing Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman Lynn Crockatt, who ran this year’s Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Shortly after the celebration May 5, the council began investigating accusations that Crockatt and other members of the parks commission, which organized the festival, mishandled finances.

The council voted Wednesday to discuss the dismissal at a meeting June 12.

Responding to accusations that its own investigation of the affair was biased, the council decided Wednesday to request that the Ventura County grand jury and the district attorney’s office conduct an independent review.

In a 21-page report, the council charged that Crockatt had spent $3,178.33 more than the $12,000 budgeted for the celebration. The report also said Crockatt had sold unnumbered tickets and paid performers in cash, violating city codes and prevented any clear accounting of the money received.

Councilman Scott Montgomery said the council “may need to discipline” the parks commissioner because he had not apologized for his handling of the event.

“I’ve been very saddened by his reaction to the report and to the council,” Montgomery said. “The only thing we can construe is that he would do this again.”

Crockatt acknowledged Thursday that he committed an error in judgment but said he would handle the finances the same way under the same circumstances. He paid in cash because no checks were prepared for the entertainers, and he was unable to reach the mayor, he said. He said his choice was to pay the performers as they came off the stage or have a lot of angry people show up at Moorpark City Hall the following Monday.

“My perception was to make the event the best it could be,” Crockatt said.

The council also voted at Wednesday’s meeting not to repay another Cinco de Mayo festival organizer for $960 in expenses. Because Teresa Godinez’s payment for the performances of a clown and Ninja Turtles was unauthorized, council members voted to deny her reimbursement request.

Both Mayor Paul Lawrason and Councilman Roy E. Talley Jr. stressed that the council’s criticism of Crockatt did not reflect on the Cinco de Mayo event itself or Moorpark’s Mexican-American community.

“If St. Patrick’s Day were run in the same way, we’d take the same action,” Talley said.