Editorial from June 30, 2006

City Council just can’t get it straight

By Danielle Seckler

   Like so many other reporters, we hear a lot, yet we can’t say anything about it. So it was with the Brown Act violations, committed by the budget committee of Big Bear Lake. In January 2005, the City Council had to be reminded that the Village Committee was a standing committee. This was confirmed by the City attorney, Steven Deitsch, and a list of all the standing committees was sent to each of the media, whereby the budget committee was listed as a standing committee. The budget committee seems to fit the definition of a standing committee to a tee. Every year the budget committee does the ground work, followed by a workshop with all or most of the City Council members, and the final approval at a City Council meeting. The budget is done on a yearly basis, with a mid-year budget analysis to see if the budget is working as they had planned.

   So what was different this year? Apparently, Mayor Bill Jahn and Darrel Mulvihill are the two City Council members on this committee and the two who must take the final consequences for its decisions, allowed or decided that this year the budget committee was an Ad Hoc committee. So on Monday, knowing that Dennis Large’ was filing a complaint with the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office on the same day, they made a point of stating that there were three “Ad Hoc” budget committee meetings and two workshops. The workshops were publicly noted as mandated by the Brown Act; however the budget committee meetings were not. Then at the end of the meeting when each council member is given the chance to state things they had done, Mayor Jahn announced that the ‘ad hoc budget committee was disbanded’.

   Though budget meetings are usually long and boring, they do show where the council wants to put the taxpayers money. This can be especially valuable to the public and the media. By depriving us of the notification of the three meetings, no one could see how and why of the taxpayer’s money was to be spent on. At the City Council meeting on Monday, Mulvihill made a big point that the roads and drainage budget was increased to about $1.56 million dollars this year. Along with this announcement, Mulvihill chastised a letter sent to the editor that stated that $250,000 were spent on the failed Measure G. Mulvihill insisted that the amount mentioned was false and that the person, who was sitting in the small audience, should have checked his facts. Bear Valley News asked for a detailed accounting, including Lew Edwards’ consulting fees, County election fees, advertising, and printing fees for ‘Vote yes on Measure G’ signs, etc. We were given a lump sum of about $125,000 and no detail to how much was paid for each item. It seemed to us that now that Measure G was unable to find the two thirds votes to pass the measure, their tone of the statements made was a defense of their actions. Both Mayor Jahn and Mulvihill pushed very hard to convince the public that Measure G was the right way to go, with some defensive spin that the previous boards were to blame for not keeping up on the repairs that got Big Bear Lake into the predicament it found itself in.

   With Mayor Jahn announcing that the budget committee was disbanded, it seems to us that there is almost a cover up, by spinning the definition of standing committee. We don’t think this will fly well with the DA’s Public Integrity Unit. Since the budgets were approved, with no time to spare as the year end is June 30th, if the DA finds that the City is in violation of the Brown Act, and then what could the remedy be? The only thing we can think of is to invalidate the budget and start from scratch. Aside from any fines levied, there will be the added cost of staff time and effort of doing another budget.

   The basic intent of the Brown Act is to give the public a view into how their government works. This provides trust in the government that it is doing the peoples’ business and not making decisions in smoke-filled back rooms. This year the City failed to do this, which only deepens the feeling of the public that there is a secret agenda. Even if everything was on the up-and-up, the perception is that there was some kind of hanky panky going on. In a time, where the City is being held up as being ineffective in getting things done and having a sloppy past history of accounting, one would think that they would be especially careful by making everything public. BBARWA went through the same thing, and they got it. The City law should be “when in doubt, make it public”. Then there is a government which is transparent and can not be accused of doing something behind the people’s back. When will the City Council get it straight?

Danielle

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