DLSE's 3-card monte with taxpayer-paid state vehicles: who cares because the taxpayer's paying the bill & DLSE doesn't change until a court orders it

The Los Angeles office of the DLSE cannot do their job because they are too busy crying about which car is assigned to them. Asst. Chief Greg Rupp dislikes his new "E" plate car, so he gives that one to gal pal Abigael Calva: Rupp acquires new car with undercover plates. The DLSE never stops bending over the taxpayer and giving them the shank. Those two nitwits rarely slither out of their caves, so to justify giving them cars is very weak. To give them new cars is just them laughing at what they can do to the taxpayer. Asst. Chief Rupp doesn't need a car with undercover license plates; who does he think he is, Frank Cannon? The biggest difference being that Frank Cannon actually did work and closed cases, but I digress.

So we have Regional Manager Abby Calva all pimped out in her brand-new Impala, but the real mystery is where her old car went. Did it go back to the state's Dept. of General Services? Nope. Abby's old gold Stratus went to her gal pal supervisor Diana Chen. What that means is that we now have a state vehicle issued to Wage Claims and going to the Bureau of Field Enforcement. What did Diana Chen do with that car? She gave it to subordinate Andy Kim, because he's been crying about not getting a new car for a long time; besides, she didn't like the color! Diana Chen has this subordinate, Ricardo Mejia, who drove around in a semi-new lavender car. She likes the color of that car, so she just takes it. She then takes the state vehicle issued to Carlos Lopez and gives it to Mr. Mejia. Mr. Lopez no longer needs a car, as he is leaving the DLSE to work for California's Dept. of Health Services.

Asst. Chief Greg Rupp's new state vehicle sits at his house while he recovers from knee problems...funny how management has no problem brow-beating the rank & file employees into submitting their state vehicles for general use should any of these rank & file types be away from their duties for more than a week! Nice double standard there; let's see Angela fix that. Based on the action & inaction I've seen in the first 30 days, I don't think new Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet will do much at her new job. What I don't understand is why she left a big law firm (pro-employer/anti-employee litigation) to take a cut in pay to work at DLSE. If she's going to use this job as a resume builder for political greener pastures, then one might assume that she'll need to do well here.

Currently, she's having Abigael Calva and Lupe Almaraz figure out how to solve her Corrales problem. Angela can start by not thinking that the problem makers are really problem solvers in disguise...they're (still) problem makers. Angela should have them solve the taxpayer-paid state vehicle ethics problem before giving them a California Supreme Court problem like Corrales deadlines to solve.