El Pueblo Undergoes Staff Shifts

One official in the city’s Department of El Pueblo has been terminated and another placed on administrative leave as officials continue to investigate management lapses in the small agency that oversees the birthplace of Los Angeles.

A spokesman for Mayor James K. Hahn declined to name the employees but said the moves had occurred May 21. The department’s general manager, Ed Navarro, had resigned a few days earlier, officials said.

The personnel changes come in the wake of a highly critical audit of the department issued in April by City Controller Laura Chick. She said the department, which oversees Olvera Street, was “teetering on the brink of financial disaster.”

When her auditors went to the department’s offices, they found scores of unpaid bills and unsecured cash. Most of the tenants in the street’s 27 historic buildings had no signed lease agreements, and the rent charged was much lower than at nearby locations, Chick said.

To replace Navarro until a new general manager was hired, Hahn earlier this week appointed Rushmore Cervantes, who was an official in the city’s Department of Aging. On Thursday, Cervantes told the commission that oversees El Pueblo that he would do everything he could to address problems -- from deferred maintenance to updating leases. “It’s embarrassing,” he said of the audit.