Reporter questions whether Arcadia allowed event organizers to use Parks & Recreation contact info without authorization

An unidentified speaker who reviewed city calendars and email records said organizers of the NorCal Collectors Expo listed the City of Arcadia Parks and Recreation Department as the contact for events on Dec. 7, 2024, and April 5, 2025, raising questions about whether the city authorized use of its phone number and email address.

The speaker said event listings in the Lost Coast Outpost and other calendars showed the department’s official phone and, in some cases, the department email as points of contact. The speaker contrasted those listings with their review of communications: they said Duane (a person named in the records) had no record of a phone call, text or email from Parks and Recreation supervisor Colin Groom, and that multiple public-records requests returned responses that the city had no records responsive to requests for memoranda of agreement or council authorizations.

The issue matters, the speaker said, because California’s gift-of-public-funds doctrine generally bars the gratuitous use of public resources for private benefit unless a direct and substantial public purpose is documented. The speaker described a 2023 memorandum of agreement between the city and a nonprofit (written in the record as 'Central Del Pablo'/'Centro de Pablo') that formally documented a…