The district attorney’s investigation into whether Councilman
Craig Gartman misspent donations while running the Memorial Day
Parade seems to have stalled due to a lack of evidence, leaving
nameless city officials and residents to stoke the fires of
conspiracy.
The district attorney’s investigation into whether Councilman Craig Gartman misspent donations while running the Memorial Day Parade seems to have stalled due to a lack of evidence, leaving nameless city officials and residents to stoke the fires of conspiracy.
Many questions linger about Gartman’s handling of the parade’s finances, but Santa Clara County District Attorney Investigator Michael Sterner has yet to subpoena crucial records from Heritage Bank that could put the issue – or “witch hunt,” as Gartman called it – to rest, according to bank officials and people interviewed by Sterner.
Those private records could shed light on how many checks, and for how much, Gartman wrote to himself and his wife as reimbursements for parade expenses they incurred on personal credit cards.
Those records could also clarify Gartman’s claim that Leadership Gilroy Board Member Bob Kraemer gave him permission earlier this decade to use the nonprofit’s tax ID number to solicit tax-deductible contributions for the annual parade Gartman and Councilman Bob Dillon ran until last summer, when they handed the reins to the new team that includes Gartman’s political rival, Mayor Al Pinheiro, and Councilman Dion Bracco’s wife, Christy Bracco.
Only two individual donors asked Gartman for the tax number in 2002 and 2003, but everyone else, including major donors such as Wal-Mart, which donated $5,000 a year, wrote checks directly to him and asked for receipts, he said. Wal-Mart representatives did not return multiple messages, and Alan Ladd, the branch manager at Gilroy Heritage Bank, said the bank has no choice but to trust that clients use valid tax numbers. Leadership Gilroy President Lloyd Lowery and former treasurer Deanna Franklin, both of whom were not around in 2002 or 2003, said Gartman never received permission to use the group’s tax number.
Kraemer passed away from cancer in July 2008, the same month Gartman closed the Heritage account under his and Dillon’s social security numbers. Gartman wrote himself a check for the remaining $543 and said Thursday he may donate the money he still has to a local veterans group.
Before closing the account, Shirley Willard of the Gilroy Exchange Club, another nonprofit, asked Gartman in May about possibly taking over the parade, but he deleted the majority of his financial records from his personal computer two months after the parade because he and Dillon had decided to call it quits and he needed the hard drive space, he said.
“Why would they have any concern with what happened with a previous account? Is their charter to put on a parade or investigate me? What is the beef?” Gartman said. “This is just an opportunity to make me look bad. You have people following these wild rumors, and it’s just the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”
The new parade organizer, the Gilroy Community Organization, sought Gartman’s financial records earlier this year to get an idea of how the parade worked, Christy Bracco said.
Gartman said he received few records from his predecessor, Ann Green, and no money, but Community Organization members said they were surprised when Gartman did not turn over detailed bank statements, canceled checks and the remaining $543.
The new group ultimately raised nearly $17,000 in three months this year – compared to about $12,000 Gartman said he usually brought in – and eventually spent about $9,000 on the parade, President Christy Bracco said. Without Gartman and Dillon’s account, though, the city council agreed in April, at Pinheiro’s request, to hold the new committee’s donations until it could create an IRS-recognized nonprofit.
The fact that Pinheiro and Gartman found themselves on opposite ends of this controversy, as they often do on the dais, is just a coincidence and does not represent a political agenda, as Gartman and others such as Councilman Perry Woodward contended, Christy Bracco said.
“We have never made any … statements to try and bring a bad light on the work that the past committees have done,” Christy Bracco said. “Whether or not any of the committee or board members are Pinheiro supporters has nothing to do with our interest in putting on the Memorial Day Parade and Family Fun Day in The Park.”
A subpoena from the DA’s office, which has neither confirmed nor denied the investigation, and a sit-down between Gartman and Sterner – who has not called Gartman or Dillon, they said – could straighten this out, but back-door politicking and anonymous accusations have irked Gartman to the point of noncompliance. Woodward, whose law firm donated $2,000 to Gartman’s parade and $1,500 to this year’s fund, sympathized with his colleague’s frustration.
“The DA’s office is obliged to investigate all sorts of things, but that doesn’t mean there’s any wrongdoing,” Woodward said. “Quit dancing around and let’s see some evidence to back up these accusations.”
Councilman Dion Bracco, who, along with every other council member and the chief of police, received an anonymous tip in April to investigate Gartman, disagreed with the witch hunt characterization and said the investigation should continue “in the interest of open government and ethics.”
“We’ve talked on the council a lot about if someone makes an accusation, then it must be looked into,” Bracco said. “As a council member, I believe we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and if I’m raising money as a city council member, I think that should be open to the citizens.”
