The District Attorney’s office is interviewing people connected
to Gilroy’s Memorial Day Parade Committee for signs of corruption,
according to those interviewed.
The District Attorney’s office is interviewing people connected to Gilroy’s Memorial Day Parade Committee for signs of corruption, according to those interviewed. The investigation comes three months after someone wrote an anonymous letter to police complaining about the former committee’s accounting practices.
The investigator with the Santa Clara County Office of the District Attorney is looking into claims by the parade’s new leadership that former committee fundraiser and City Councilman Craig Gartman inappropriately spent about $1,600 of a roughly $12,000, donations-based budget on restaurant meals for volunteers, according to those interviewed.
Led by Christy Bracco – Councilman Dion Bracco’s wife – the new committee has also accused Gartman of withholding adequate financial records.
District Attorney Dolores Carr issued a statement in response to a request for comment: “We can neither confirm nor deny that we are conducting an investigation. What I can say is that we take allegations of governmental misuse of funds seriously, and we strive to make appropriate decisions on how to handle any potential criminal activity, regardless of the value.”
Gilroy Police Sgt. Jim Gillio would also not confirm or deny any investigation.
Gartman, who said nobody has contacted him from the attoney’s office, defended the expenses as appropriate and well within his purview as the leader of a private group volunteering to host the parade.
He also said he gave every record he had to the new committee earlier this year after deleting more detailed statements from his computer last summer, when he and former committee Co-chair and City Councilman Bob Dillon – who was also not contacted by the investigator – decided they would not run the parade after nearly a decade.
The money came from a now-closed Heritage Bank account under Gartman’s and Dillon’s names.
“I’ve given up all the records I have, but they just wanted (Dillon) and I to be more involved in the transition and work on the new committee. But they ended up running a fantastic parade and raised more money than I ever did,” Gartman said. “You’re talking about a private organization. It would be like someone coming into The Dispatch and telling the editor he can’t buy espresso beans for his employees – he has to buy them regular coffee. Well, what the hell business is that of yours?”
Gartman still has about $540 left over from his committee and said he planned to donate it to the Gilroy Veterans’ Flagpole Fund. The current committee, which pointed to Gartman’s lack of records as a roadblock to fundraising, pulled in nearly $17,000 this year.
“So they obviously have no problem finding donors,” Gartman said.
The current committee spent about $9,000 on the parade. A small fraction of that bought T-shirts, but no restaurant outings, Christy Bracco said.
Thanks to the city council’s 6-1 approval in April, a month before the parade, the city agreed to hold the new committee’s donations until the committee could create an IRS-recognized nonprofit, which it is still working on, Christy Bracco said.
Councilman Perry Woodward was ultimately the only no vote after Gartman initially opposed the idea raised by the mayor, according to minutes from the meeting.
People interviewed by the investigator throughout the past month include present and past committee members, such as Christy Bracco and former Councilman Russ Valiquette, both of whom said they were not surprised by the investigation.
“If (Gartman) had funded this parade out of his own pocket, it would be one thing, but he didn’t – he solicited donations, making the parade a community asset,” Valiquette said. “Nobody’s accusing anybody, but (former Committee Chair Ann Green) handed over all her records in 2001 when (Gartman) took over … He should’ve just turned over all his records like she did.”
One woman who contributed to the former committee’s $12,000 bucket last year was resident Sue Jenkins.
In an e-mail to Gartman and the rest of the council last month, she wrote: “Our family is as much sad as we are mad that (Gartman) used the money we gave to honor Jeremy Ailes not for the parade, as we were led to believe our money would go to, but instead to buy meals for your friends at local restaurants. We are struggling to keep our home and make ends meet now so every dollar we make really matters and we never go out to dinner anymore.”
Disillusioning donors, whether merited or not, makes future fundraising difficult for folks like Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage.
Though an ally of Mayor Al Pinheiro – who Gartman has accused of engineering the controversy – Gage said he has never contacted the attorney’s office to encourage an investigation and has not been contacted by anyone in the office.
Instead, he’s more concerned about what residents will say when he asks for money in the future, he said.
“For (Gartman) to say this is political is a bunch of crap – I raised more than $200,000 for the youth center (in the 1990s) and accounted for every penny, and anything left over when to the gang task force. I never took anybody out to dinner,” Gage said.
