Grand Jury Recommendations
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 21 June 2010 — 4 comments below »
The Grand Jury report released late last week concluded with five recommendations…
- The City of Hercules shall expand ethics and conflict of interest training beyond the minimum two hours required by the California Attorney General’s memorandum, Ethics Training for Local Officials, and avail themselves of additional resources.
- The Hercules City Council shall direct the City Manager to invite open bidding on all contracts with NEO and other service providers.
- City Council Members shall restrict their participation with regard to affordable housing issues to policy direction and budget allocation. Final approval of individual loans shall be delegated to appropriate City Staff.
- In the future, the City Council shall operate its affordable housing program by openly publicizing available properties for sale by the City and listing them on the MLS.
- Minutes shall be recorded for all City Council committee meetings.
The last one is a big deal, as the Council’s subcommittee process has been most clearly a subversion of open meeting laws.
The City is required to respond to the five recommendations in writing by August 2.
“The appearance of impropriety” means the transactions do not pass the “smell test”.
It is presumptuous in the extreme for the city manager and city council to think that everything is OK by essentially “laundering” the payments to NEO by transferring Nelson Oliva’s interest to his two daughters.
It would be a clear violation of state conflict of interest law if Nelson or his wife maintained an interest in NEO, but the law does not expressly include offspring, so voila! Put it in the high school daughter’s name! Clearly Nelson continued to call the shots, and his family and friends profited from these sweet heart, no bid deals.
I question why the grand jury has not issued subpoenas to review email and other transactions between NEO and Oliva.
This is wrong on so many levels.
It is a kick back scheme, pure and simple.
It is a bald attempt to siphon public funds to benefit family members of public officials.
Where is the city attorney on this?
His client is the CITY, not the individual councilmembers and city employees committing malfeasance.
Better review those Rules of Professional Conduct.
Start with section 3-600.
If this council is not gone in November then I’m out of this town. I’d rather live where I can be proud of my elected officials and of the citizens who do the electing.
The Hercules Council members should resign right after they fire Cabral and Oliva. Their conduct is shameful and should not be tolerated by citizens of Hercules. Council meetings remind me of the “Stepford Wives”, where nothing real happens except behind the scenes. The real stuff is done in private meetings between council persons and city staff with no notice and no minutes. Our city is overburdened by taxes, ordinances and high paid staff. It seems to have just become a playground for elected officials and city employees to find new and different ways to burden the citizens with more and more taxes and laws. In my opinion, its over!
@ Margie Liberty — Do you really think the city is “overburdened by taxes”? Could you elaborate? I’m trying to understand your point-of-view.