STOCKTON — The Civil Grand
Jury followed up on a previous grand jury investigation of Stockton Unified
School District’s police hiring practices and City of Tracy’s business dealings
involving Tracy airport, and has determined both government entities complied
with responding to the reports.
On Monday, the 2014-15
Grand Jury released its follow-up investigation on the 2013-14 reports.
The former grand jury in
2014 criticized then-SUSD Superintendent Steve Lowder for the school district's
moving too fast in hiring an interim police chief and a captain about two years
ago and at the time was excluding the Human Resources Department from the
hiring process.
The district had not
received nor reviewed a report from the Department of Justice before allowing
Eric Holman and John Huber to begin running its police department after Chief
Jim West retired in August 2013.
The 2013-14 Grant Jury
recommended last year the district put in place policies and procedures to
involve Human Resources in the hiring of police employees by Nov. 1, 2014.
“The District implemented
this recommendation,” the school district responded, according to the follow-up
investigation report. Assistant Superintendent Craig Wells issued a memo on the
pre- employment requirements on Feb. 4, 2014, to all staff responsible for the
paperwork with step- by-step guidance, including directions to complete
fingerprint clearance before employees start working.
Human Resources now is responsible
for hiring and the police department has aligned background procedures with
state regulations. Peace officers must be cleared by the state Department of
Justice and the FBI and undergo a credit check and psychological and medical
exams.
The grand jury’s report on
the City of Tracy investigated the city’s relationship with a local developer,
as well as safety requirements at Tracy Municipal Airport.
The jury had found no
evidence of an illegal deal between the city and developer Surland Cos., but the
jury did mention City Hall’s “alarming number” of actions to make sure informal
requests that benefited the developer would be fulfilled.
One of the requests was to
remove a few feet off the official length of one of the runways. In exchange,
the developer would pay the city $425,000 between 2013 and 2022, the report
said.
Aside from finding no
unlawful business, the jury surmised the city’s credibility was damaged by
transparency and public trust issues.
The jury also looked at
whether the modifications to the runways compromised the city’s ability to meet
requirements on safety zones, the areas surrounding the runway, which are meant
to reduce risk of damage to the airplanes should an undershoot, overshoot or
excursion from the runway occur.
Jurors found, “City staff
provided inaccurate and incomplete information to the City Council which could
jeopardize the eligibility for the City receiving future grants.”
The city agreed with the
statement, according to the follow-up report, and has taken up the recommendation
to conduct a comprehensive review for the city council on federal aviation and
state transportation safety zone requirements on the runway lengths. A memo
dated Dec. 29, 2014, was provided to the council on the requirements.
When it came to transparency,
however, the city asserts that some of the recommendations are unreasonable.
The grand jury had
recommended the city council adopt a policy requiring full disclosure of any
actions taken by the city on proposed substantial changes to major development
projects.
The city responded that
state law already requires its actions on land use and development projects be
disclosed to the public and the Brown Act already requires the city makes
council agenda items public.
But for development
projects, city staff provides only formal requests processed under those
provisions to the council. Informal requests are not regularly presented to the
council.
“This is not only to use
the City Council’s valuable time more productively," the agency responded,
"but also to avoid confusion over what action is actually before the City
Council.”
June 2 2015
Stockton
Record
By
The Record
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