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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