Another one of our big, historic, prestigious, and influential Black churches is in trouble with the law. Second Baptist Church. It pains me to have to report this, but what has happened and is happening at the 125-year-old Second Baptist Church — the first African-American Baptist Church in Southern California — is news, albeit, bad news, and I am compelled to tell it because “telling it” — warts and all — is my raison d’etre.

Here it is: The LAPD is conducting a criminal investigation of Second Baptist Church into the probable embezzlement of at least $750,000 from its credit union and the church is party to a lawsuit filed in federal court pursuant to the demise of its credit union and the disappearance of the credit union’s money.

Detective Don Watkins of the Newton Division’s Burglary Unit (which handles all property crimes) said the SBC Credit Union became defunct and inactive last year and “my job is to find out what happened to the money,” he said. “This is a criminal investigation and I am following the money, as I must determine who took it. So far, it looks like about $750,000 is missing, but that figure could go higher.”

I asked the detective who he thinks took the money. “I’m not at a point yet in which I am ready to point fingers and name names, but I will get there,” Watkins said. The detective also said a lawsuit with respect to the missing money was filed in civil court, but at a hearing in October the lawsuit was sent out of civil court and re-filed in federal court, where a hearing has been scheduled for later this month.

My intelligence report notes the names of several people allegedly involved in this problem, but, like Watkins, I will decline to mention them until I see those, or other names, written in court documents. At that point, the venerable Second Baptist will come out of Soulvine and join St. Paul Baptist, Double Rock Baptist, First AME, Ward AME and Brookins AME on the front page.

HALLELUJAH, ANYHOW — A good thing happened at Grace United Methodist Church last Sunday: Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, one of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ twin sons, was the Youth Day speaker at the church’s two morning services and acquitted himself very well and became the talk of the town. Sebastian, a 22-year-old Morehouse graduate, took as his topic, “There’s a Balm in Gilead” and wowed the congregations with his erudition and fervor — much like his father, I imagine. The son is currently doing graduate work in public policy and plans to ultimately obtain a Ph.D. in sociology of religion.

WE ARE OVERCOMING, ANYHOW — Brigadier Gen. Mary J. Kight was sworn in Tuesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as head of the California National Guard, making the 59-year-old woman the first African-American female National Guard adjutant general in the nation and the commander of the largest guard unit in the country. I love this woman. I want to be this woman!

On the other hand, the decision of Los Angeles’ own Erroll Southers to withdraw his name from consideration as head of the Transportation Security Administration to which he was nominated by President Obama is sad but understandable. The Republicans had suited up to make Southers their political football and such a game was beneath his dignity. So he told Obama “thanks, but no thanks,” and decided to remain here as assistant chief for homeland security and intelligence, help keep LAX secure and his dignity intact and leave the partisan politicians to themselves.

WATSON GETS IN — Rep. Diane Watson was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame in Atlanta last week. Watson was one of eight civil rights inductees, which also included the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), with which we — The Wave — are affiliated. The induction ceremony was held at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and was preceded by a program at civil rights ground zero — the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

By the way, Watson will hold a senior town hall meeting Saturday at Friendship Auditorium, 3201 Riverside Drive in Los Angeles. She has invited a panel of experts to address critical issues facing seniors, such as the latest updates on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and prescription drugs. The meeting starts at 10 a.m.

THIS AND THAT — Assembly Speaker Karen Bass appointed Kristina Dixon to the state Board of Podiatric Medicine. Dixon, of Moreno Valley, is a graduate of Joy Atkinson’s Los Angeles African American Women’s Public Policy Institute, with which I sometimes help, so I can be proud, too!

State Sen. Curren Price got to preside over the Senate last Monday after having been asked to do so by President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

It’s that perpetual grandstander Carson City Councilman Mike Gipson again. This time, he tried to upstage the city’s other elected officials and direct undue attention to himself with his official City Hall portrait. It seems all seven of Carson’s elected officials had new portraits taken to hang in City Hall and, as usual, all of the portraits were alike, with nothing but the official’s face on a plain blue background. Well, Gipson decided to be different, so he struck a Barack Obama-like pose and had a computer-generated U.S. flag and the Carson city flag superimposed on his picture. His annoyed colleagues made him take that thing down and put a proper portrait up there like everybody else’s.

AND FINALLY — If the city is in such dire financial straits that it must lay off employees, then I believe employee layoffs should occur across the board. No department should be exempt from layoffs — certainly not the city council members’ and the mayor’s staffs. Heck, the mayor has more employees than anybody. He even “borrows” employees from other departments and incorporates them into his staff, so that on paper they work in another department but in reality they’re sitting in there with him!

This mayor has a much bigger staff than Tom Bradley or any other mayor had. And for what? Not only should the City Council staffs be forced to downsize, we need to reduce the size of the council itself. In these bleak fiscal times, do we really need 15 little tin gods and their staff of worshippers sopping up all our money? City Administrator Miguel Santana should let me help him fashion a city layoff plan because I know three or four city council members who can be laid off and we’d never know they were gone.