Exclusive: EasyPark sues to recover missing $200,000

While it awaits the result of a criminal investigation, city-owned parking lot management company EasyPark is suing a Vancouver couple to recover more than $200,000 that it alleges was stolen by an ex-employee.

EasyPark’s Sept. 17 British Columbia Supreme Court notice of claim says Dan Chiu Keung Wong’s job was to empty ticket machine cash boxes into secure cash boxes, deliver the portable cash boxes to EasyPark’s secure treasury and report and account for all the cash boxes delivered.

But EasyPark claims that Wong stole funds from the cash boxes between 2008 and August 2012 and “altered or otherwise doctored the records of EasyPark to conceal his mishandling of the cash boxes, the portable cash boxes and his theft of the misappropriated funds.” 

“Dan was not authorized to and, as part of his employment with EasyPark, did not have the ability to open any of the cash boxes or the portable cash boxes,” said the lawsuit, filed by lawyer Peter Roberts of Lawson Lundell. 

EasyPark sued Dan Wong and his wife Angela Miu Kam Wong on Sept. 4, 2012 to seek return of the misappropriated funds plus interest. EasyPark received judgment on Sept. 16, 2013 against the couple for $203,037.95 plus $2,189.64 interest. The 1948-founded EasyPark, a non-profit public authority legally known as the Parking Corporation of Vancouver, manages 41 facilities with 10,836 parking spaces.

The claim says the Wongs bought a house on Jan. 4, 1993 on 3568 Tanner Street in Vancouver and jointly owned the property until June 22, 2005 when Dan Wong transferred his half interest to Angela Wong for a nominal $1 “and natural love and affection.” Since June 23, 2005, Angela Wong has been the only owner of the property, which has an assessed value of $787,200. 

The claim says the Wongs intentionally transferred the property to “defeat, delay, hinder and defraud” both Dan Wong’s existing and future creditors.

EasyPark chair Ransford

EasyPark claims Dan Wong “had accrued significant debts to creditors, including the Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank of Canada” and filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 30, 2006. He was discharged on Oct. 3, 2007. 

EasyPark wants the court to treat Dan Wong “as if he were still the legal and beneficial owner of the property” and grant an order for a certificate of pending litigation on the title of the property. 

The Wongs have not responded in court to the latest filing and the allegations have not been proven in court. A telephone message for the Wongs was not immediately returned.

In Dan Wong's Nov. 26, 2012 response to the Sept. 4, 2012 EasyPark lawsuit, he admitted he was employed by the company from January 2006 to Aug. 17, 2012, but denied misappropriating or converting the alleged misappropriated funds for his own use. That filing also said he was separated from Angela Wong.

EasyPark's Aug. 26, 2013 application for judgment against Dan Wong said the company retained KPMG Forensic to audit EasyPark records and determined there were $203,037.95 in "non-routine variances" between Jan. 1, 2010 and Aug. 18, 2012. "These non-routine variances in cash were 'most likely collected by Mr. Wong'," said the application.

The Aug. 26, 2013 EasyPark application said that "during the course of Dan's examination for discovery on June 27, 2013, an objection was raised to several relevant questions asked of him." 

One of the 10 objections raised was to this line of questioning by EasyPark's lawyer: "Mr. Wong gave evidence of a gambling problem. He was asked whether he ever borrowed money from friends, relatives or third parties for the purpose of gambling." 

EasyPark’s board chair told me in an interview that a criminal complaint was filed with the Vancouver Police Department. “Hopefully the police will deal with it to the full extent of the criminal law, but it’s in their hands,” said Bob Ransford.

VPD social media/media relations officer Sandra Glendinning said: "We will not speak to incidents that are currently under investigation, and we will not identify people who have not been formally charged."

Ransford said “procedures have been improved and tightened up” for employee background checks and money-handling at EasyPark. 

“This is an isolated case as far as we can tell,” Ransford said. “You want to know if there was any collusion or potential conspirators or other instances where this happened. There was a fair bit of audit work to rule that out.”

“Technology is moving us further and further away from the use of cash, and I think that’s a good thing, both from an efficiency point of view and controls." 

Note to readers: Do you have proof of significant fraud or theft in public-owned companies or government offices at any level? Only credible tips are welcome. Please contact me here. 

Exclusive: Ballem bashes media, promotes city trash manager

On Sept. 11, Vancouver city manager Penny Ballem sent a memo to staff to defend acting sanitation manager Mike Zupan from reports in The Province about the hiring of a Hells Angel as a trashman. A day later, Zupan was promoted to manager of sanitation operations. That’s the way Penny rolls. 

This, despite an internal staff report that I published, which shows widespread anger among the sanitation department rank-and-file over bad management. The staff survey even includes allegations of rule-breaking and nepotism!

While Ballem mentions in her memo that civic hiring practices are “aligned with legislation,” one can reasonably wonder if they’re also aligned with the interests of the public. Specifically, are reasonable efforts undertaken by city hall to ensure that those hired by the city can be trusted to do the public’s work, on the public’s dime, regardless of their past? 

Ballem writes that the city has unspecified "safeguards and controls in place" to prevent organized crime from being affiliated with the city and that "we have no evidence of any involvement of organized crime in our organization. We are in close touch with (Vancouver Police Department) and they have not indicated any concern in this regard."

The city's corporate hiring policy states that only so-called “positions of trust” -- involving contact with vulnerable people, security and safety of people and assets, regulation and inspection or handling cash -- require police record checks, credit record checks and enhanced reliability checks. Evidently, that didn't apply to garbage collector Ronaldo Lising.

See Ballem’s full memo below, followed by the memo announcing Zupan’s promotion (and an important note to readers at bottom). 

________________________________________

From: City Managers Broadcast Account

Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 3:02 PM

To: All Staff (COV) - DL

Subject: COV Broadcast: Message from the City Manager

Dear Colleagues across the City of Vancouver,

I am writing to all our staff today in regards to an article in today’s edition of the Province newspaper.  This article is a follow up to one that ran on August 26 regarding the employment of a particular individual in Sanitation who is allegedly affiliated with the Hells Angels. In my response to the media in August, I indicated that we would be carefully reviewing that situation.  We hire hundreds of regular and auxiliary staff every year across the City departments, Boards and Agencies.  As we have indicated previously, we take the integrity of our hiring process very seriously and we continue to work to improve this very important function in our organization. The issue of organized crime being in any way affiliated with any organization is a serious risk and we have many safeguards and controls in place to prevent that from happening and we have no evidence of any involvement of organized crime in our organization. We are in close touch with VPD and they have not indicated any concern in this regard.

Our hiring practices are aligned with legislation – Human Rights Code, Labour Relations Code, Privacy legislation and related regulations and case law – and we have a very diverse and talented work force of which we are very proud.

However I am very concerned and dismayed about the unsubstantiated and irresponsible allegations and innuendo reported in the media today which is allegedly coming from our staff (and some of our retired staff) regarding Mike Zupan, our Acting Manager of Sanitation. I want to be very clear that Mike Zupan has the full confidence of this organization and there is absolutely no evidence that he had any previous relationship with Ronaldo Lising. His work with the City of Vancouver over the last 20 years has been exemplary.

Sanitation is an area where there is much change ahead, some of which is imposed on us through legislation while other elements are part of our overall goals for zero waste. We have an excellent leadership team which is working with many other parts of the organization to move changes along in a constructive, transparent way, and in a way which meets the needs of our citizens as well as our staff.  I know I can count on all of you to keep focused on our goals and work together productively toward serving our public which is why we all work for the City. Thank you. pb

Penny Ballem, MD, FRCP

City Manager

City of Vancouver

Cell:  604.551.XXXX

Fax:  604.873.7641

penny.ballem@vancouver.ca

From: ENG All Staff Broadcast

Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2013 10:10 AM

To: ENG All Staff (COV) - DL

Subject: Staff Announcement

I am very pleased to announce that Mike Zupan is our successful candidate in the recent competition for the Manager of Sanitation Operations.  Mike brings over 20 years of experience in progressively responsible positions with the City to his new role.  I’ve had the pleasure of working with Mike over the past 1 ½ years since I joined the City and continue to be impressed by his dedication and commitment to moving forward, adapting to change and making things better in the areas in which he is working. For the past 8 months Mike has been doing an excellent job as Acting Manager and has successfully implemented and number of changes in the branch to improve operations, employee engagement and overall morale within the branch.   I look forward to continuing to work with Mike in his new role as we continue to navigate the significant changes underway in Sanitation.  Please join me in congratulating Mike on his new role.

Albert Shamess

Director - Waste Management and Resource Recovery

City of Vancouver

604-873-XXXX | albert.shamess@vancouver.ca

IMPORTANT NOTE TO READERS: Is Vancouver city manager Penny Ballem on the ball or is she out to lunch? Is Vancouver city hall really a gleaming example of the ideal government workplace, free of corruption or has it gone "Montreal-style" and been infiltrated by organized (or disorganized) crime? If you have proof of organized crime, fraud or other corruption at Vancouver city hall, any of its departments or agencies (or, for that matter, any federal, provincial, civic or aboriginal government office), please contact me here. I also gladly accept confidential, brown paper envelopes (addressed to me) at this address and that address.