Garofalo Money Incident to Spark Change in Rules

The board of the Huntington Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau will meet next week to consider strict new check-writing policies proposed in the wake of a near-scandal involving former Mayor Dave Garofalo.

“When we work with a group of volunteers involved in promoting travel and tourism ... we would have a policy to [control] ... their finances,” bureau President Doug Traub said Thursday.

The policy overhaul was ordered by the board last month after disclosures that Garofalo, who resigned in December before pleading guilty to one felony and 15 misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charges, had transferred $11,500 from a bureau account into one of his own. The money was eventually returned, after repeated requests by the bureau and its threat to seek embezzlement charges, according to Traub.

Bureau officials said Thursday they considered the incident a wake-up call. “When you’re dealing with a loose group of volunteers,” Traub said, “ they may feel like they can spend money without bringing in receipts; this will make it clear from the very beginning that that’s not how we operate.”

New rules would add a paper trail and ban signing blank checks.

Reached late Thursday, Garofalo denied wrongdoing, saying he had put the money in a separate account simply to avoid mixing it with bureau funds. “I felt the only right thing to do was ... develop some consensus on where the money should go,” he said, adding that the money was eventually distributed the way the donor wished.