The city spent between $10,000 and $15,000 to debunk a nameless
allegation concerning fund expenditures, according to city
officials.
Gilroy – The city spent between $10,000 and $15,000 to debunk a nameless allegation concerning fund expenditures, according to city officials. And the lone city councilman who received the false accusations and then conveyed it publicly has since frustrated many of his colleagues over the way he handled the anonymous tip.
Last month the council unanimously voted to investigate whether the city misspent water funds to beautify downtown, and Monday City Administrator Jay Baksa presented a comprehensive report showing exactly how water funds were spent in conjunction with the $4.1 million, phase-three renovation of Monterey Street.
Councilman and mayoral candidate Craig Gartman spurred the investigation by publicly reporting to the council Sept. 16 that he had received an anonymous letter alleging corruption.
But it turns out if the city hadn’t spent nearly $1.3 million from its restricted water fund (which comes from residents’ water bills) to replace and refurbish old pipes, then the city would’ve had to tear up a clean, new Monterey Street – along with its sidewalks, lighting and planting – to fix the pipes after the remodeling project was completed. This would be a waste of taxpayers’ money, and doing it all at the same time made sense, according to Baksa and City Transportation Engineer Don Dey.
Anticipating downtown growth also meant the city needed to ensure that Monterey Street’s main “brittle” waterline – part of which dated back to the late 1800s or early 1900s – would have sufficient capacity.
“It would’ve been almost irresponsible for us to not replace that line,” Baksa said.
To do this, city crews installed a new, larger line buried deeper underground between IOOF Avenue and Sixth Street, installed more valves for easier maintenance and hooked up more fire hydrants, according to a staff report written by Community Development Director Wendie Rooney.
One of the biggest complaints included in the allegation was that the project was not included in the 2004 Water Master Plan. That’s because it was in the 2005 Downtown Specific Plan, which trumped the preceding plan, Rooney wrote.
It has also been a long-standing policy of the city “to replace or repair public utilities before a surface program is to be undertaken,” according to Rooney’s report, to which Baksa referred.
On top of this, Baksa and Rooney noted that the council approved the streetscape bid with Golden Bay Construction Feb. 6, 2006, and it included the water main line item for $1,279,123.
Before this, the council also met to discuss the water line’s role in the third phase of the Downtown Streetscape project, which the body first approved in 2000 after a public outreach process.
Organizing all of this information came at the behest of an allegation that “was very hard to follow” since it was based on last year’s budget figures and sprinkled with editorial denunciations staff did not address, city officials said.
Councilmen broke from the numbers-only report Monday night, though, to criticize Gartman for keeping the allegation to himself for so long.
Gartman said he received the anonymous tip Thursday, Sept. 13, but put it aside and didn’t tell his colleagues of it until the Sept. 16 council meeting, where the council ordered Gartman to copy the document. He did this about 4:30 on the afternoon of Sept. 18.
This all contributed to the investigation’s delay, Councilman Roland Velasco said, but Gartman said the allegation was so hard to understand that he needed to spend the Tuesday and Wednesday after Sept. 16 reviewing it and acquiring relevant city documents to copy for his colleagues. There was also a separate e-mail sent to City Hall Sept. 16 concerning water funds that the council did not address Oct. 1.
“I know I’m not done with my investigation to my satisfaction, but I appreciate all the work,” Gartman said. “It’s very good information, and hopefully it’ll put to rest a lot of concerns.”
But Pinheiro said Gartman should’ve broached the allegation to himself or Baksa in a subtler manner that could’ve avoided a formal, expensive investigation.
“Norms weren’t followed,” Pinheiro told the council in reference to Gartman.
“I think it was shameful the way it was handled,” Councilman Dion Bracco said.
On a less personal note, Councilman Peter Arellano decried the city’s exculpatory report as an avoidable waste of time and resources since he said the city shouldn’t entertain anonymous allegations at all. He said he didn’t know the allegation was anonymous when he joined the council in voting Sept. 16 to investigate it.
“We don’t live in the Soviet Union. What is the city going to do if somebody puts in a complaint like this?” Arellano said Tuesday. “I’ve gotten hate mail, and people put their name on that,” he added with a chuckle.
Council candidate Perry Woodward said after the Sept. 16 meeting that “what Craig [Gartman] did was appropriate. It had to be done.”
Pinheiro disagreed, and he said as much before the council voted 5-1 to formally receive the report and hear public questions later, with Councilman Paul Correa absent and Gartman dissenting.
“I have confidence that had [the allegation] been turned over to anyone else besides Gartman, that they would’ve turned over documents to City Hall,” Pinheiro said. “We don’t want egg on the city’s face. We want to work as a team.”
Gartman’s idea of teamwork seemed to differ from Pinheiro’s, though.
“All I was trying to do is bring a message, and it appears right now I am being criticized for bringing a request from someone to this council,” Gartman said. “If someone wants to send me an anonymous letter saying they have concerns about the city, then I’m going to look into it,” he added before reminding his colleagues that they all voted to investigate the issue, as well.
It wasn’t even the fact that Gartman brought it up that upset Councilman Russ Valiquette, though, but the way in which Gartman “blind-sided us with it.”
“You totally excluded the other six of us without guilt or a bit of remorse,” Valiquette told Gartman. “But I tell you, Mr. Gartman, when you start making accusations like that with people I’ve grown up with, I take offense to that.”
