Tom’s pal under wider investigation

What is it with Tom "Balboa Bay Club" Fuentes? How come so many of the people he associates with are so dang corrupt?

From this morning’s OC Register: D.A. joins list of Street investigators

Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector Chriss Street, already under fire for a nearly $1 million office remodeling, is also being investigated by the District Attorney's Office about a possible deal with a private architectural company.

…It is the latest in a growing list of official investigations into Street's past and present employment. Last week, The Orange County Register reported that the U.S. Justice Department's Santa Ana office was investigating Street's previous work as a bankruptcy trustee for Fruehauf Trucking Corp.

Other federal probes into Street's Fruehauf work include several by the Department of Labor and one by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., according to filings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Since the Register reported last week on Street's extensive office renovation, supervisors and investors in the county's $7 billion portfolio, which Street manages, have questioned the costs. The remodeling includes a $500,000 contract for office furniture with a Riverside company.

…Street, who has been in office just eight months, said investigators questioned him about an architectural contract for work on the building that houses his office, the Hall of Finance and Records. Street said only that his office sought guidance from the county's Resources and Development Management Department and that it complied with the county procurement processes.

"I talked to them about architecture on the outside of the building," Street said. "To date there's been no contract issued and no funds expended."

…Daniel Harrow, Fruehauf's current trustee, called Street's tenure at The End of the Road Trust, as the host of companies under Fruehauf was renamed, "a story of mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and greed."

During that time Street and his wife, Victoria, drew a salary of more than $2 million plus $477,527 in expenses for vacations, clothes and payments to a plastic surgeon, Harrow said.

Among many charges, Harrow said Street located the trust's offices in Corona del Mar, overlooking the yachts of Balboa Island. This was "an extravagant choice for the operation of a liquidating trust of a bankrupt estate," his legal complaint says.