We
’d like an itemized list, please. That’s not too much to ask,
now that the City Council has approved spending up to $100,000 –
yes, you read that right, six figures – to find out who was
following the city manager on a business trip earlier this
year.
We’d like an itemized list, please. That’s not too much to ask, now that the City Council has approved spending up to $100,000 – yes, you read that right, six figures – to find out who was following the city manager on a business trip earlier this year.
When you consider that the City Council members decided to launch the investigation that’s now sporting a six-figure price tag in closed session, without the advice of the citizens they stuck with the bill, it’s an eminently reasonable request.
Attorney Bruce Tichinin’s private eye, who it turns out was following the city manager, was apparently ordering hot chocolates during his investigation. It makes us wonder: What were the city’s investigators sipping at taxpayers’ expense, Dom Perignon? Were they renting Jaguars or maybe Bentleys? Were they dining at Zagat-rated restaurants? Were they relaxing in five-star hotels and traveling on first-class airline tickets? Quite frankly, we have a hard time understanding how out-sleuthing an unlicensed private eye could possibly be a $100,000 operation.
It makes those infamous $600 toilet seats the Pentagon used to be so fond of buying seem like quite a bargain.
It was pretty nervy of the city to try to sneak the agenda item to approve setting aside $100,000 for this farce on the consent calendar, especially after the chutzpah it displayed in approving the first $50,000 of the cost of investigation of the investigation behind closed doors.
The consent calendar generally contains agenda items that are thought to be so routine and uncontroversial – or already discussed in public – that they are appropriate to be approved without further debate. It should be apparent to anyone that this six-figure tempest is neither routine nor uncontroversial.
Councilman Greg Sellers, who hopes to unseat Mayor Dennis Kennedy this November, wisely asked that the item be removed from the consent calendar at the July 28 meeting, but it’s galling that it someone thought it was an appropriate item for the consent calendar in the first place.
It’s just another sign of how much city leaders just want this whole mess to go away. They apparently don’t want to hear questions about possible Brown Act violations, or explain why the investigation was necessary at all, or deal with difficult questions about the high price tag.
We will continue to raise those valid and important questions, and we’re sure that Morgan Hill citizens who value open meetings, transparent government and fiscal accountability will too.
A good place to start restoring that transparency is for Morgan Hill officials to provide an itemized list, immediately, of exactly how it spent $100,000 to out-sleuth an unlicensed private eye.
City Manager Ed Tewes said Monday that the city has yet to compile itemized bills from those involved in the investigation. And, he stressed, the bills will not necessarily be paid as requested.
The city should move ahead quickly on releasing these bills so that taxpayers can see what they will be paying for and decide for themselves whether the outcome was worth it.
