As you know the City of
Pacifica has lost track of $4.8 million dollars. They know that it was
moved from one account to another but do not know what it was spent on. I
have been repeatedly told that they do not believe it was misspent or
embezzled but offered no proof. When it comes to $4.8 million dollars of
taxpayer money, a believe and a trust me attitude, is just not good
enough.
Since
both the City Manager & the City Council refuse to do a forensic
audit mine and the Public's only choice is to request that the State
Controller's Office investigate Pacifica's financial practices. The E-
mail address for the this department is eoinquiry@sco.ca.gov
If you could get the word out that the people of Pacifica have this avenue available to them I would greatly appreciate it.
34 comments:
Meh, par for the course. That's how democrats operate. So shut up and go away. Keep your mouth shut. Government rules and that is the way it is.
This is not a Democrat or Republican issue this is a what to hell happen to our money issue. The City of Pacifica owes it citizens real answers.The more they try to bury the truth the more we must insist they are forthcoming, if a State Audit is the only way to get them off the dime then so be it.
Please join me in asking the State Controllers Office to find out what happen to our money. The e-mail address is eoinquiry@sco.ca.gov.
Meh 1147, City administration policies are NOT partisan issues.
And the City Assistant General Manager (also a CPA) did review the misplaced Fund tracking irregularities.
A clear and concise report tracking these Fund transfers seems appropriate, but demanding the additional cost of a forensic audit in addition to the review, and taking this issue to the State seems a bit premature and over-the-top.
There was some conversation about these Fund transfers at City Council by the City Manager several months back. A City Councilmember could request a formal report as a Consideration item for a future meeting.
1147, "I am not a crook" is a coined comment by a Republican who resigned the Presidency (turns out he was a bit of a crook).
Tom, you said "the more they try to bury the truth..." The current administration uncovered the problem, and I can imagine the fun they're having trying to dig through the ten or more years of when it WAS buried. Yes, it's slow, but that's the nature of this. Should they have waited until they had all the answers before even announcing it? (They probably wish they had!) If it was that easy, they'd have done it by now.
Tom, thank you. The state is the last resort and you would hope someone on city council would ask them to get involved. It's happened elsewhere. Council has had 2 years to tell the truth. It's clear they're relying on a few things to make this go away. They rely on the passage of time and how it can erase a paper trail or make us forget as new issues take the spotlight. They rely on the endless sniping for which Pacifica is famous, to turn the mishandling of at least 5 million dollars into a political issue rather than being held accountable for mishandling the taxpayer's money. That's a smoke-screen and who knows who's behind it? With no sense of shame or irony, they rely on the preposterous "audits cost too much" to avoid doing their fucking job. Why is that? Pacifica City Council members, if you don't want the truth found and shared with the public, you don't belong in public office. Your individual integrity is in question. If you can't do the right thing as a group, and that may be the case, then act alone and contact the state at the email Tom Clifford provides. Just do your job.
128 Oh yes, that moment of discovery must have been awesome. Right. Spindrift isn't the only place for little theatre in Pacifica, although we should note that all of the Spindrift actors do know they're in a play when the curtain rises. LMAO.
Jeezlaweez! Even Bell, CA had a whistle-blower in house who reached out to the state and I think it was a city council member. We're no Bell, CA, but, Pacifica City Council member, doesn't this put an idea in your head?
I think the Tea Party did it. Probably helped by Fox News and the ghost of Richard M. Nixon. Funny how quick the Dems blame Repubs for problems but what happens when there are no Repubs to blame. And then, and only then, it becomes a "non partisan" issue. LMAO! History books show that as many Repubs were behind ousting Nixon as Dems. But you will never see the converse from the Dems. As long as you are a Dem, you can do or say anything and your flock will never call you on it. Fact.
I can't think of a better reason for an audit than five million semolians.
I'll send an email today but I need more info than just the words as you know because not only did I not know, neither will the state controller.
Where is the missing from?
626 Your pocket! Leave it to our nincompoops to screw the books up so badly that they can't give a cogent explanation. BTW, that means it's hard for the average person to lodge an intelligent complaint with any official group with the chops to investigate. Funny how that works. Guess we can call it serial undocumented inter-fund lending and a loss of the public trust. How much? 4.8 million is a nice starting point.
550 Lame diversion, but what the hell, you're nuts.
Six or seven years ago when the city was in a serious financial crunch and conducting public hearings looking for suggestions about the budget, I looked through the supposedly detailed figures released by the city. Half the money was in "Miscellaneous" accounts with no explanation beyond that.
I don't know if that's always been the case with the city, or if it was because the city's Bookkeeper/HR Director at the time didn't know what she was doing.
Miscellaneous? That's Pacificanese for Mad Money. Keep things messy and no one can figure out where the money goes. Expense or embarrassment? Which one is the real obstacle to an audit by someone not on the payroll. Apparently forensic audits are done when there is a suspicion of wrong doing. I wasn't suspicious 2 years ago, but I am now. Good job City Council.
Lancelle, deJarnutt and Digre are all living comfortably after pulling off the biggest financial crime in Pacifica's history.
A huge percentage of our annual budget is unaccounted for and these three were the officials who were responsible for the safe management of our tax dollars.
Incompetence, embezzlement, dishonesty.....what difference does it make?
remember: Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld are also living comfortably after perpetrating the worst war crimes in American history.
Is that how things work in Pacifica as well?
Hmmm. 814 Are you actually accusing those 3 of criminal conduct or just providing another of your demented diversions? For those of us who would like to know what happened to the 5 million bucks, you're a freakish sideshow. I wouldn't give any council member from 2003 to the present a pass on this issue. Not one of them. Gullibility and ignorance can only excuse so much, and, certainly, they are not all gullible or ignorant. Has a crime occurred? Who knows? And, for many of us, that uncertainty is in itself a crime of arrogance and stupidity. Council, your first loyalty should be to the people you represent, not your colleagues, past or present. You took an oath. Blow the whistle.
Is there a sample email we can use?
Controller need some more details about when and where missing money is or was.
There's not enough info here to fill out the complaint.
Tom Clifford have you already sent your own complaint in?
Can we reference it so this guy knows I'm talking about?
Based on the Staff budget report dated 6/4/15 Fund 9 Street construction fund/frontierland remediation fund. lent fund 22 (General Capital improvement fund) $2.2 million fund 22 spent this money (0r did it? no records)plus another $1.91 million for a fund 22 balance of-$1.91 million. Since this report the numbers have been revised upward.
Note: The disaster fund also has a negative balance of -1.2 million and the City lost the $2.5 million it lent from the General fund to the Rockaway R.D.A. for lack of a repayment plan.
Note: The City is now in the process of borrowing $5+ million dollars from the sewer maintenance fund to make payments on the pension obligation bonds.
Hello Tom, Taking this mess to the state controller has been mentioned on here before, but looks like you're the point man on it. Thank you. Can you give us an idea of how to format the complaint? Also, complete email address and maybe a physical address, too? Got a contact person? What about an LTE? I'm ready to email the state and saw a fairly concise "complaint" in your thread on Riptide in which a poster described the problem as the undocumented serial "borrowing" from one fund to pay for something that another fund should have paid for if there were any funds in it. Operate that way for a decade or more and it's no wonder council and staff can't or won't find a paper trail. I believe it is state law that such transactions be documented and repaid. What we're getting from this council is the equivalent of "we'll never do it again". Fine and dandy except we don't know what they did and it's quite possible they haven't a clue.
Lancelle and deJarnutt were both bragging that Pacifica finances were in great shape in their campaign bids for re-election. deJarnutt even referenced a mysterious $7,000,000 surplus. Meanwhile they were spending and taxing and moving money from column to column to back up their phony claims.
If that isn't criminal, I don't know what is.
$5,000,000 is a lot of money for this little podunk town and these scoundrels played fast and loose with it. Remember how they demonized anyone who questioned their motives or expertise on all things Pacifica. Kind of like the NEOCONS who called anyone who questioned them, un-Patriotic.
This is a serious crime which requires serious investigation and prosecution.
Lucky for them, they can always blame Vreeland, their deceased partner in crime.
Let's not forget that Lancelle called Vreeland a "brilliant and wonderful" public servant.
446 Awesome! Keep it swirling, never flush. No better cover for this mess than rancid Pacifica politics. Are your motives nefarious or do you just suffer from poor impulse control?
Thanks Tom, have you spoken to the assistant city manager about this?
It's my understanding he's writing a report that will be released this month.
My comments are neither nefarious nor born out of lack of impulse control.
Here's the thing.......
Lancelle is sniffing around for another term on council. The NOBIES (Pacifica wreckers) are determined to put another one of their brethren on council to shift the majority back to their failed plan for Pacifica. This is the same group that spawned the likes of Lancelle, Digre, deJarnutt and Vreeland. These are the same people who are the most culpable for our failing city. These are the same people who want no light shining on their wrong doings. We need to make them accountable for their terrible leadership before they can start whipping up a new season of political lies to fool the low info voters.
Pacifica is on life support with zero margin for error.
634 The subject was the unaccounted for 5 million bucks. That's a compelling number and it needs none of your tired political fish wrap. Your diatribe is cringe-worthy. It isn't going to inform or change minds because it repulses people. Haven't you noticed that most Pacifica voters like and support those very people that you attempt to smear? That's why they vote for them. They don't want to hear your unhinged garbage and because you apparently need to make that garbage part of every issue they then ignore the issue. And this is an important issue. Yeah, free pass for everyone on the 5 million because you just can't focus. Let's hope others can and through their focused, rational efforts we find out what happened. Get to the truth about this money and let the chips fall where they may.
Your mindless, gullible, "go along to get along" mental fish wrap is what gives these faux-enviros a toe hold in Pacifica politics.
They have done so much damage to our town that even the name Pacifica is cring-worthy all over the bay area.
Stay in your dream world if you like but the least the rest of us can do is expose the deeds of these incompetent story tellers and curtail the garbage they have been spreading around for decades.
You can vote for Obama and pretend the three legged frogs are more important than generating sales tax for our crumbling city so we can pay our police enough to fix the roads but the only one fooled are Democrats.
There is no missing money and we don't need to put our council members in jail even if there was.
A forensic audit only puts people in jail if they are guilty.
Anyone who opposes it is probably guilty.
@4:59 a) You're replying to someone who thinks the police fix our roads?
b) I oppose it because the city hasn't made a final report yet. Why incur extra expense and inflame people (unless that's the intent?) until it's been researched and presented? I think that Tom is being far too quick off the mark. And that all the people who seem to want to follow his lead and send complaints themselves but admit they know nothing about it is typical Pacifica! Pushing for the city to report first (and be more transparent about it) would be the sensible thing!
Anonymous 6:33 I respect your opinion but any report on Staff & Council actions supplied by City Staff is going to have the taint of bias. A forensic audit done by an independent source, be that a private company or the State Controllers Office will not come with that baggage and will go were the trail leads them.
Lori had the chance to do this but she put sever restrictions on the level of audit that she commissioned.The issue has not gone away so now she is trying to pass off a report by her own staff as some how good enough.
The City Manager may very well only be trying to save money but the Public,Staff and the current City Council need to know exactly what happen with the $4.8 million so that in never happens again.
I am surprised and disappointed that The City Council has not already directed Staff commission a full forensic Audit.
633 This council and city staff has zero credibility on this issue. Too little,
too late. In fact, that seems to have been their strategy...do as little as possible to find where the money went and do it as slowly as possible. If it wasn't their actual strategy, it'll do til a real one comes along. Oh, yeah, and let's do the audit ourselves. Really? Are you people on smoking crack or are ya just hoping we are?
o928 Knock yourself out. Again.
For the "I'd rather fight forever like a junk yard dog than win" crowd...focusing cleanly on the missing money and leaving politics out of it is the best way to end any number of political careers if it turns out past and current council members did anything wrong, or, and this is far more likely, knew of this practice and intentionally concealed it until that spectacular "reveal" more than 2 years ago. Most Pacificans want the truth about this, but most Pacificans are not interested in savaging others. Stick to the facts, shut up about nimbies, faux this and that, don't make people cringe, and you'll have a lot more allies. Effective allies. Of course, you may not really want the truth.
I e-mailed the state comptrollers office and their reply is below:
This is a response to your inquiry.
The State Controller’s Office (SCO) does not have the authority to conduct an audit unless requested by the city and the city pays for the audit services. The SCO has very limited authority to address issues involving local governments, such as:
· We would need you to provide us with sufficient information/documentation that the city is not spending state funds appropriately and in accordance with state laws.
· SCO has a reason to believe that that city's financial transactions reports are false, incomplete, or incorrect (Government Code section 12464(a)).
This appears to be a local matter and if that is the case we recommend that you contact the Grand Jury or District Attorney and provide them with sufficient information/documentation to show that the city is engaged in illegal activities.
Thank you,
Mike Spalj, Chief
State Controller's Office
Division of Audits - Local Government Audits Bureau
Desk: (916) 324-6984
Email: mspalj@sco.ca.gov
I received the same E-mail an I am now exploring if any state funds were in the accounts in question. I am also looking into what I will need for the Grand Jury and/or the District Attorney.
Might be some state funds involved somewhere in that mess. Designated specifically for one use and quietly misused for another. Hope so, because no one in Redwood City wants to deal with Pathetica. See how useful a well-earned reputation for incompetence can be? It's council's rabbit foot. These toads and any future council will never get another dime from Pacifica voters. That's some legacy, Toads.
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