Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Another Galloway on Anaheim City Council? Not on Mike's Record!


Anaheim’s political watchers were floored yesterday at the announcement that Mike Galloway, husband of Councilmember Lorri Galloway, pulled papers to run for Anaheim City Council. Honestly, Galloway’s future has been a much-discussed topic, wondering what kind of move she would make next in order to keep the special interest money rolling into the friends-and-family charity Lorri and Mike run, aided by her best friends and her own kids. Yep, everyone is feeding at that trough. But a run by Mike was unexpected.
Lest anyone confine their disgust at the use of homeless women and children for personal gain to just the lady of the house, Mike Galloway has been personally involved in a lot of dealings that appear to speak to the quality of his character- or lack thereof.

Just to kick off his campaign, let’s look at how the Galloways managed to put together the seed money to relocate from Salinas to Anaheim Hills. While we in Anaheim had known about this, I will borrow documents from Friends for Fullerton’s Future, as they have the primary records easy to grab.

Many rumors about the Galloways are out there on the internet, but in keeping with my policy of “If you can’t prove it you can’t print it,” I am only repeating those allegations that are documented with retrievable records.  (The Galloways are known for suing people who say things they don’t want to hear. See Case # 746160 Santa Ana Superior Court later dismissed as a SLAPP nuisance suit.)

In this case I am working directly from court records retrieved by FFFF from Monterey County courts.

While the dates on this are old (late ‘70s early to mid 80’s) the caliber of character it takes to throw one’s dying aunt into the streets because you sucked her house dry of equity without her knowledge is a pretty timeless issue, and not one that qualifies a person for public office.  In addition, the amounts may seem minor, but relative to today’s dollars, the amounts would be substantial. Imagine the value in the average real estate investment today for a rough comparison. One may overlook a decades-old bankruptcy, or even a youthful indiscretion, but I see this kind of behavior as just pure evil. That said, here is the court case.
On or about October 20, 1977, Plaintiff Barbara J. Russell (Mike Galloway’s aunt) and defendants Michael G. Galloway and his wife, Lorraine Galloway entered into an agreement with regards to property located at 415 Chaparral Street, Salinas, CA.

Defendant took title to the property described above and obtained a loan secured by said property from the Bank of America. The Plaintiff remained in residence on the property and paid to the Bank of America the monthly payments to include an amount for taxes and insurance, provided for in the first mortgage held by Bank of America.

Without notice to the plaintiff, (emphasis mine) Defendant encumbered the property on three occasions. Defendant borrowed $12,000.00 on January 19, 1980, secured by a Deed of Trust recorded February 6, 1980.

Defendant obtained a third loan in the amount of $6,300.00 on September 9, 1980, secured by a Deed of Trust recorded September 29, 1980.

Defendant obtained a fourth loan in the amount of $6,500.00 secured by a Deed of Trust recorded August 10, 1981.

Mike Galloway’s aunt, reportedly dying of cancer, learned that her house was mortgaged to the hilt only when it went into foreclosure! It appears she had trusted her nephew to help with her finances so that she could focus on the battle for her life, and he sucked her dry.

Looking at the original document (attached in the pdf of court docs) the agreement makes it clear that the sale of the property would release all equity back to Barbara Russell, and in the event of her death the money would go to her children. There appears to be no written intent that Galloway had any right to the equity in the house, and the courts agreed. Sadly the judgment was won only after the house was lost to foreclosure, Barbara Russell was awarded the money, but died before it was collected. More later on how the Galloways appear to have pocketed the money altogether.

It isn’t often that I agree with Harry Sidhu, but to be fair, he did try to warn the people of Anaheim about the caliber of the Galloway family’s dealings, with this mailer sent to voters back in 2004. 

Some of us tried again in 2008 to warn voters about the Galloway family’s lack of ethics. Will voters pay attention in 2012? This does not seem like the kind of stewardship that Anaheim needs, especially in light of our current critical environment.  I am going to do what I can to alert Anaheim’s voters, and hope our readers will help by sharing information.  There is a lot more where this came from. 

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