tetratech.com

According to a Periodic Transaction Report filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives on March 12, Sara Jacobs purchased stock in Tetra Tech, Inc., valued between $15,000 and $50,000.

Fraud on the House

A controversial radioactive waste cleanup and rainforest restoration contractor accused by the U.S. government of faking soil tests and related fraud at San Francisco’s Treasure Island Navy base has turned up on the list of recent investments by first-term, super-rich House Democrat Sara Jacobs. According to a Periodic Transaction Report filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives on March 12, Jacobs purchased stock in Tetra Tech, Inc., valued between $15,000 and $50,000 on February 19. “Tetra Tech’s fraud was initiated and directed by Tetra Tech’s corporate managers,” per a Justice Department complaint cited by an April 2019 San Francisco Chronicle account of the case. “In the complaint, the Justice Department says Tetra Tech submitted at least $58.5 million in false invoices; under the law, the government could demand triple that amount, or $175 million,” the newspaper noted. In November of last year, Tetra Tech sued the Navy and Environmental Protection Agency, claiming that two of its workers, not the company, were solely to blame, but charges are still flying. “More than a half dozen whistle blowers have said that to speed up the job, Tetra Tech took soil samples from areas known to be clean and passed them off as coming from areas known to be heavily contaminated,” the Chronicle said.

Democrat Sara Jacobs bought a House seat and some shady stock.

Tetra Tech has also come under fire by environmentalists for its role as a U.S. government contractor in 2019 deforestation at Cambodia’s Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, as reported by the Voice of America last June. “Prey Lang lost ‘more than one football pitch’ of forest cover every hour in 2019, equaling 0.71 hectares of loss an hour,” according to the account. “We are concerned that the Ministry of Environment and their partners, U.S. Aid for International Development and the American company Tetra Tech, has either not detected the forest disturbance or has chosen not to communicate it to the public,” University of Copenhagen professor Ida Theilade, emailed VOA. A letter by Theilade and associates attacks the Cambodian government for its “actions to prevent the Prey Lang Community Network, which patrols the fast-disappearing evergreen forest, from conducting its work. It also points to the ‘silent approval’ by U.S. Aid for International Development and implementing partner Tetra Tech, which provides millions of dollars under the ‘Greening Prey Lang’ project, for the intimidation tactics used against the PLCN.”

Other recent investments by Jacobs include between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in LHC Group, acquired on February 19. During a March 2020 media event touting his administration’s corporate response to the covid-19 pandemic, then-president Donald Trump cited the home care behemoth as a “tremendously talented group of people,” New York Magazine reported.

“One of the executives, LHC Group’s Bruce Greenstein, didn’t take Trump’s proffered hand at the news briefing but gave him an epidemiologically correct elbow bump instead. ‘OK, I like that,’ Trump said. ‘That’s good,’” added Geekwire.

The death of Dad

Patrick Jay Lipe, proprietor of the Poway swingers’ dive Dad’s, died February 16, 2021, of heart failure at age 66. Dad’s is where child murderer David Westerfield partied with friends and neighbors, including his victim’s parents. “Patrick built several successful restaurant businesses over the decade,” says Lipe’s obituary on Legacy.com. “Pat loved life. He knew how to appreciate the little things and make the most out of any situation. He was scrappy, a fighter, and he hustled to get himself off the path that most unloved foster care kids are set on. He made something out of nothing and was successful in a way that many never are. He gave the best advice about life, could make a joke out of anything. He was a father figure to many of his employees and was always willing to teach those that wanted to learn.”

David Westerfield still awaits his fate on San Quentin’s death row.

Dad’s “got the name because Pat wanted a family-oriented place in Poway, and Dad’s is a conservative name you can trust, and it’s a conservative place,” bar manager Sean Brown told a San Diego Reader reporter in an August 1, 2002 profile. By then, Dad’s had become infamous as the hangout where Brenda van Dam, mother of slain seven-year-old Danielle van Dam, “may or may not have lasciviously rubbed her hipbones and good-sized bosom against 50-year-old design engineer David Westerfield’s hulking frame. Westerfield is alleged to have kidnapped and murdered the van Dams’ second-grader, Danielle. He is alleged to have committed these heinous deeds only hours after Brenda van Dam is described in court as ‘having her tail feathers up’ and ‘acting frisky’ and ‘acting huggy-huggy’ on the dance floor at Dad’s.”

Found guilty and sentenced to die, Westerfield remains sitting on San Quentin’s death row two decades later. “Honestly, I feel the longer he’s in his box, he’s being tortured,” van Dam told KUSI-TV on March 14 after word came that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom had suspended the state’s death penalty. “I hate to say this as a person, but whatever is worse for him is better for me.”

— Matt Potter (@sdmattpotter)

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