The Colusa City Council has postponed most of its planned discussions to October meetings, due to an unavailability of staff at the Sept. 21 meeting.
The City Council and public has asked for a full accounting and discussion on the city’s economic development and tourism activities, as well as detail on all grants applied for and received by the city.
Both of those items have been postponed to Oct. 5, although citizens on Tuesday said they would not let their city representatives off the hook for the Sept. 7 report by Economic Development and Tourism Director Kristy Levings, which they said was misleading or untruthful.
“As council people, you have fiduciary responsibilities to this community,” said Don Bransford, during public comment. “The report that was given at the last meeting is not financial integrity. There is none here.”
Citizens have been asking for several months for the release of information and explanations as to how city staff was able to secretly raise thousands of dollars from businesses and then spend it as they saw fit, with little or no input from the public or council.
Levings claimed she raised more than $103,000 total in donations, beer sales, and ticket sales, and spent $91,335 on Country in Colusa, Watermelon Festival/Fourth of July, and Taco Festival, leaving $11,665 in the economic development’s tourism budget (although public records released to date dispute those figures). The report also did not include the cost of staff expenses, including overtime.
In her report, Levings said the events were intended to operate at a loss, which is the price of rebranding Colusa as a tourist attraction, although no such discussion occurred at the City Council level. Although Levings pointed to meetings held over the spring and summer, the agenda, minutes, and audio recordings do not reflect the council discussing any of the events in advance, but only net-neutral recreation programs, funded by a separate departmental budget, but historically dependent on community sponsorships.
The May 18 meeting that Levings referenced as discussion of the city’s rebranding and fundraising efforts, dealt with possibly changing the city’s logo. At that meeting, city officials said there was no money in the budget for “rebranding” but that Councilman Tom Reishe offered to raise or donate a minimum of $250 for prize money for a logo contest.
Levings also pointed to events like Sacramento’s Farm-to-Fork Festival and Petaluma Music Festival as examples of private/publicly funded events organized by local government jurisdictions. However, those events are organized by nonprofit organizations. Visit Sacramento, responsible for the Farm-to-Fork festival, is a 501(c)(3) economic development corporation. Of Levings’ examples, the City of Dublin has an active recreation department that drives events, supported by sponsorships. She also compared Colusa’s tourism opportunities to the City of Woodland, which is situated on Interstate 5, near the 505 Interchange, just north of a large metropolitan area.
Bransford, who commented at both the Sept. 7 and Sept 21 meetings, said Leving’s comparisons do not fit Colusa demographics.
“The City of Sacramento has a $1.3 billion budget,” Bransford said. “I think we are at $4 million. She used Woodland: 59,000 people. They’re at a $55 million budget. She used Dublin; they’re at 65,000 people and a $126.7 million budget, with a $12 million surplus. We’ve got no surplus. She also used Petaluma, which has 59,000 people and they have a $229.6 million budget.
Bransford said Levings’ report has no relevance to the local community. He also said she ended her “fact or fiction” report by first asking questions and then answering them.
“I would like the council to answer some of these questions about who gets to use those funds (donations) and who has the authority? If you read the report, it says the staff has the authority to spend money as they see fit, and the purchasing policy does not apply. If (the city council) agrees with that, I would like to know.”
Bransford, as well as other citizens, have repeatedly asked for the City Council to have an open discussion on economic development and tourism. He expressed his disappointment in the Sept. 7 meeting where, once again, City Manager Jesse Cain steered the discussion behind closed doors by requesting the council’s thoughts, ideas, and opinions be emailed, not to each other, but to him.
“Good governance is about process and transparency,” Bransford said. “And that transparency occurs in this room. It doesn’t occur in the city manager’s room with one or two of you. It occurs here, where there is open dialog – so we all can understand where you are going or what your positions are. We don’t get it any other way. You are elected to let us know how you feel and what your positions are.”
Bransford said instead of emailing thoughts to the city manager, they lay their thoughts and positions out in an open meeting and formulate where they want to go from there. “It doesn’t get driven by staff. They work for you.”
Levings did not attend the Sept. 21, meeting. Cain attended via telephone. ■