City spending approval a disaster in the making

Barstow City Council recklessly approved (3-2, with Steve Curran and Joe Gomez dissenting) giving the city manager unlimited authority in spending city money in the event of an “emergency.”

City Council is charged with, among other things, making sure tax money is spent wisely and appropriately. This decision represents an abandonment by some council members of their own duties. State laws allow for City Council to gather relatively quickly in emergency situations without violating open meeting laws. There’s very little justification for this decision.

The argument presented in making this decision doesn’t really hold up given further analysis. A recent illegal diesel dump created a pollution crisis, and Mayor Lawrence Dale said that the city had to act quickly to prevent further contamination and fines. Early estimates put the cost of cleaning up the spill at $500,000 or more.

However, we find it highly unlikely that: one, the city would have to pay all the money up front in order to begin the cleaning process; and two, another government agency would levy fines against the city for following state laws for arranging a formal City Council vote. City Council managed to meet and vote on the matter just fine.

Curran and Gomez attempted a more reasonable decision of giving the city manager a greater emergency spending limit of $200,000, as opposed to the current $25,000 cap. Their proposal was rejected, with City Council member Tim Silva arguing, “I don’t see an advantage of having it at $200,000 rather than unlimited.”

It concerns us deeply that a City Council member doesn’t see an advantage in limiting city staff spending. We would remind the council that Barstow’s interim City Manager Richard Rowe resigned from the same position in Chino after city staff entered into a $500,000 contract to repair computer equipment without City Council’s approval. Rowe explained to the Desert Dispatch he wasn’t aware he had approved the contract. He apparently was also targeted by a City Council member who didn’t like him. We have no reason to suspect otherwise from Rowe, but the fact of the matter is that the problem would have been avoided had the contract been brought to City Council.

The city’s purchasing policy guidelines state, “An emergency action occurs when a Department has an immediate need for supplies, equipment, or services, and that, without immediate procurement, the need would have a serious effect on public safety, welfare, or City operations.”

This description is disconcertingly vague, considering the tendency of government employees to declare every project or idea they develop a matter of protecting public safety and welfare. This definition of an emergency is ripe for abuse. The new policy would require the city manager to go before the council for subsequent approval, but if the manager and staff conspired to abuse the system and failed to report the expenses, would City Council even know?

The mayor says there’s enough oversight within the city to check abuse, but as one of the main local sources of oversight for city behavior, the Desert Dispatch disagrees. When it takes us days just to get information from the city about local armed robberies affecting our citizens and businesses, we are highly suspect of the city’s self-monitoring capacities.