\t\t\t\t\tWhat’s at stake?<\/p>\n
On the heels of a Fresnoland investigation, two city councilmembers have pledged to lead a new and improved transparency effort.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s smaller-dollar contracts.<\/p>\n
At a six-minute Wednesday news conference at Fresno City Hall, councilmembers Brandon Vang and Nick Richardson said they\u2019d lead the effort to reform the city\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They also did not take questions from reporters after their remarks at the very brief news conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m appalled that it took an outside investigation to bring this issue to light,\u201d Vang said, referring to Fresnoland\u2019s reporting<\/a>. \u201cWhy did this contract not come before City Council\u2019s approval?\u201d<\/p>\n The announcement came just hours after Fresnoland published part one<\/a> of a two-part investigation into how city leaders award contracts worth $100,000 or less \u2014 contracts that don\u2019t require council approval and typically don\u2019t receive public scrutiny.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fresnoland found that some consultants wound up billing the city above the $100,000 limit \u2014 without coming back for approval in public. Unlike Oakland and San Diego, Fresno does not have a list of contracts that don\u2019t go before the council for approval.<\/p>\n In its investigation, Fresnoland shared its findings with multiple city council members who acknowledged what at least one described as a \u201cloophole\u201d that should be closed. In the Fresnoland story published before Wednesday\u2019s news conference, five of the City Council\u2019s seven members say they\u2019d support reforming the city\u2019s transparency<\/a> on contracts worth $100,00.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019d be in favor of halving the city\u2019s threshold for contracts exempt from council approval, changing it from $100,000 to $50,000.<\/p>\n Additionally, Vang said he\u2019d pursue all avenues to ensure that money that\u2019s owed to District 5 is returned.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI will be directing the city attorney to pursue all legal actions necessary to recover those funds. My responsibility is to our constituents,\u201d Vang said. \u201cI will continue to push for transparency and accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n Fresnoland reached out to both Chavez and Tavlian for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Richardson, on the other hand, said he\u2019s not concerned with where the city\u2019s contracts threshold is set. He also said he does not think anyone broke the law or didn\u2019t listen to legal advice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m interested in pushing to have all contracts that fall under that $100,000 city council approval mark to be disclosed on the city website,\u201d Richardson said at the news conference. In Fresnoland\u2019s investigation, he was one of five councilmembers who said they\u2019d be in favor of increasing transparency not just on those smaller ones, but on all no-bid city contracts, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n Richardson added that his office\u2019s efforts will be \u201cnot to make it more difficult for the City Manager\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Vang and Tavlian have a bit of history.\u00a0<\/p>\n A company with the same address<\/a> as several others run by Tavlian funded a disparaging mailer<\/a> campaign against Vang while he ran to replace Chavez on the Fresno City Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vang\u2019s main opponent in the race was Fresno Unified board member Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas, who is Chavez\u2019s spouse.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What’s at stake? On the heels of a Fresnoland investigation, two city councilmembers have pledged to lead a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-124292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}