Mayor’s Vehicle Stolen During Council Meeting

Someone stole a Chevrolet Blazer sports truck belonging to Mayor Donna Smith while she was attending a special City Council meeting on Sunday, and in a separate incident over the weekend, Councilman Willie E. White also was an auto theft victim.

Smith’s sports truck was found by sheriff’s deputies Tuesday and taken to an impound yard in the City of Industry. Smith said a window was broken, a battery and chrome bumpers were taken and the inside of the vehicle “was trashed.” Thieves also took her cellular telephone, a radio scanner and a car alarm system that was not hooked up.

In addition, Smith said, “the whole car now smells like beer.”

The mayor said the theft occurred at the end of an afternoon council study session at the Shilo Inn Hilltop Suites hotel. She rushed to the parking lot to find her 1986 vehicle missing after a staff member said she saw two men twice open the hood.

Smith said it is the same vehicle that was damaged by vandals in a fire-bombing in 1987.

White’s car, a 1988 Pontiac station wagon belonging to his employer, the Pomona Valley YMCA, was taken over the weekend from the YMCA parking lot. Police said it has not been recovered.