What's at stake?
On the heels of a Fresnoland investigation, two city councilmembers have pledged to lead a new and improved transparency effort.
Just three hours after a Fresnoland investigation revealed numerous examples of hundreds of thousands of dollars of under-the-radar public spending, two Fresno city councilmembers pledged to beef up oversight of the city’s smaller-dollar contracts.
At a six-minute Wednesday news conference at Fresno City Hall, councilmembers Brandon Vang and Nick Richardson said they’d lead the effort to reform the city’s transparency on public spending and contracts. Exactly how that might happen going forward was not clear Wednesday as neither councilmember announced any specifics or details.
They also did not take questions from reporters after their remarks at the very brief news conference.
“I’m appalled that it took an outside investigation to bring this issue to light,” Vang said, referring to Fresnoland’s reporting. “Why did this contract not come before City Council’s approval?”
The announcement came just hours after Fresnoland published part one of a two-part investigation into how city leaders award contracts worth $100,000 or less — contracts that don’t require council approval and typically don’t receive public scrutiny.
Fresnoland found that some consultants wound up billing the city above the $100,000 limit — without coming back for approval in public. Unlike Oakland and San Diego, Fresno does not have a list of contracts that don’t go before the council for approval.
In its investigation, Fresnoland shared its findings with multiple city council members who acknowledged what at least one described as a “loophole” that should be closed. In the Fresnoland story published before Wednesday’s news conference, five of the City Council’s seven members say they’d support reforming the city’s transparency on contracts worth $100,00.
Vang, who represents southeast Fresno, referenced the several contracts between his predecessor Luis Chavez and political consultant Alex Tavlian, and said they need to be examined.
He also said the public deserves to know how taxpayer dollars are being spent, and they should know how those funds are protected. He said he’d be in favor of halving the city’s threshold for contracts exempt from council approval, changing it from $100,000 to $50,000.
Additionally, Vang said he’d pursue all avenues to ensure that money that’s owed to District 5 is returned.
“I will be directing the city attorney to pursue all legal actions necessary to recover those funds. My responsibility is to our constituents,” Vang said. “I will continue to push for transparency and accountability.”
Fresnoland reached out to both Chavez and Tavlian for comment.
Richardson, on the other hand, said he’s not concerned with where the city’s contracts threshold is set. He also said he does not think anyone broke the law or didn’t listen to legal advice.
“I’m interested in pushing to have all contracts that fall under that $100,000 city council approval mark to be disclosed on the city website,” Richardson said at the news conference. In Fresnoland’s investigation, he was one of five councilmembers who said they’d be in favor of increasing transparency not just on those smaller ones, but on all no-bid city contracts, too.
Richardson added that his office’s efforts will be “not to make it more difficult for the City Manager’s Office or for any other city department to rapidly implement the contracts necessary to fix the problems in our city, but to stay true to the values of transparency and fiscal responsibility that have been the hallmarks of our mission here.
Vang and Tavlian have a bit of history.
A company with the same address as several others run by Tavlian funded a disparaging mailer campaign against Vang while he ran to replace Chavez on the Fresno City Council.
Vang’s main opponent in the race was Fresno Unified board member Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas, who is Chavez’s spouse.
In a phone call late Wednesday, Chavez claimed Vang doesn’t know much about the city’s policies on contracting, and criticized the councilmember for saying he’d ask the City Attorney’s Office to review money paid to Local Government Strategic Consulting during Chavez’s tenure.
“I think his inexperience and really not having knowledge on how public procurement process works is at work here,” Chavez said of Vang.
