Saturday, August 30, 2014

(Butte County) Letter: Motives behind Grand Jury investigation questioned


August 30, 2014
Chico Enterprise-Record

In response to letter writer Charles Geshekter: I decided to look in to the 2014 Grand Jury report after reading editorials and letters to the editor that claimed that the report proves that liberals caused the city's financial problem.
I knew from news articles that Mark Sorensen played a significant role in setting the investigation in motion and supplied most of the information it relied on.
The jury had a choice to start its investigation with some point in time. Why did it pick 2008, the year of the "great recession"?
If you really wanted to try to determine what policies and practices of the city led to the deficits, the reasonable place to look was the period of prosperity that ended in 2007 with the city $6 million in debt.
According to documents referenced in the report, the practice of manipulating funds to hide the deficit goes back more than 20 years to at least the mid-1980s.
Reading the report, I was dismayed that the evidentiary section was full of mostly hearsay accusations that seem to come from Brian Nakamura and Sorensen. The findings section did not have a single finding on the impact of the recession or the loss of the Redevelopment Agency .
Finally, the 2013 report covered everything. There was no need for a further investigation. The 2013 report found Nakamura lying. The 2014 report treated him like the savior. It is for these reasons that I question the motives behind the report.
— Mike Bush, Chico

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