City recognizes some concerns, denies others
by Brooke Edwards Staggs, City Editor, Victorville Daily Press -
While Victorville acknowledges many of the concerns raised in the San Bernardino County Grand Jury’s June 29 report, the city argues in its official response that many of those concerns have been addressed — and that fact should’ve been recognized by the citizen group.
“Although the city does not agree with some aspects of the final report and believes it unfairly ignores a significant amount of work that has been completed in the last three years, the city greatly appreciates the 2011-12 grand jury’s commitment to producing a report so that the city can address any outstanding issues properly and continue to move forward in a positive way,” staff states in a 94-page response included in Tuesday night’s City Council agenda.
One major point of contention is Victorville’s disagreement with the grand jury that it may be in violation of state law due to its extensive interfund loans. Though no payments have been made on those loans in several years, staff argues there’s no intention for them to become permanent transfers as the law prohibits.
The city also doesn’t believe it violated agreements with the Local Agency Formation Commission when it absorbed its sanitary district a few years ago — along with $15 million in reserve funds saved from residents’ property taxes.
Victorville said it was the legal successor agency to that district, and that LAFCO hasn’t raised an inquiry into the transfer. While the grand jury recommended Victorville immediately come up with a plan to return that $15 million from the general fund to a sanitation district fund, the city response states that’s not going to happen because it’s “not warranted and not reasonable.”
“Furthermore,” the response states, “the city is confident that the customers of the former sanitary district, all Victorville residents, would prefer that their paid property taxes be used to fund vital public safety priorities, such as police and fire, rather than have the money sit in an account...”
Victorville acknowledges that $13 million went unaccounted for in relation to development of four hangars at SCLA, and that the project was undertaken without proper controls in place. The city places the blame on the independent contractor it hired, stating, “because of a lack of documentation by the contractor, there is no way to calculate how much of the unaccounted funds were or were not actually expended on the project.”
Staff defends the use of SCLA bond funds to help build the La Mesa/Nisqualli interchange and buy land for a library that never got built. While the grand jury states those expenditures could be violation of an agreement with neighboring cities and the county, Victorville argues those projects could have been covered by funds from the city’s portion of a regional redevelopment agency.
Staff agreed with concerns cited over Victorville’s financial condition, though the city points out that reserves were knowingly depleted rather than making cuts to public safety staff. Also, the city’s response points out that operational deficits for Southern California Logistics Airport, the golf course fund and the utility fund have all been greatly reduced over the last three years, with SCLA and the utility even turning a profit before debt payments are factored in.
As for the grand jury’s assessment that the tens of millions of dollars Victorville has lost on failed energy ventures is largely the response of poor planning and oversight, Inland Energy, the city’s partner in many of those ventures, included a response attributing the failure to the “collapse of the economy.”
In a letter to the grand jury before the report was published June 29, City Manager Doug Robertson points out a number of the disagreements mentioned above. He also took issue with the fact that the report placed blame on “city management” without clarifying that most of the decisions questioned in the report took place under former city manager Jon Roberts.
“I have spent the last three years of my life attempting to prevent the financial disaster which this report rightfully warns is at risk and cleaning up problems I inherited as a result of actions and decisions of Jon Roberts,” Robertson states in his letter.
Victorville does plan to take the grand jury’s advice to revisit its interfund loan policy and draft policies to control costs for capital projects at future meetings, the response states. Staff also agreed to revisit loan documents and budget statements to incorporate some of the grand jury’s suggestions.
Many of the other recommendations have already been implemented, staff argues, including a plan to repay loans from the city’s water district if a lawsuit settlement comes through.
The city’s response will be discussed during the meeting that starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday night in City Hall at 14343 Civic Drive. A full copy of the response, along with live streaming video of that meeting, is available at www.ci.victorville.ca.us.
For details on other items of interest on the agenda, see Tuesday’s Daily Press.
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