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By JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Rohnert Park is due to deliver the terms of a severance package to attorneys representing Finance Director Sandy Lipitz, who has fallen out with City Manager Gabe Gonzalez.
Sandy Lipitz
The settlement proposal would be the latest stage in a legal battle that broke into the open in late July and was initiated by Lipitz after Gonzalez criticized the quality of her work.
“The City needs to be able to rely on the budget information and analysis you provide, and has been unable to do so,” he told Lipitz in a June email.
Lipitz, a 21-year employee who had previously said she wanted to retire, then hired an attorney to negotiate the terms of her departure.
Attorney Scott Steever of Santa Rosa has said Gonzalez has “targeted” Lipitz and is trying to “force her out.”
Lipitz remains at work for the city.
Steever declined to comment on what might happen if Lipitz rejects the terms offered by the city.
Gonzalez would not comment on the issue, saying it was a personnel matter.
“The only thing I can say is that she is the one that approached the city about early retirement,” he said.
Lipitz on Monday made her first public comments about the confrontation.
“Everything is as it always has been, with accurate financial reporting and budgeting,” she said. “The information the department presents correctly reflects the fiscal condition of the city.”
— Jeremy Hay
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Don’t city department heads work at the pleasure of the city manager? Has that changed?
I always thought with executive pay and perks came an acceptance that one’s job security depended entirely on the CEOs satisfaction with your performance.
If the city manager is wrong, then the ball just landed in city council chambers.
Severance pay! This disregard for taxpayer money cries is embarrassing.
I am posting under my real name and I can trace my ancestry back 600 years. We don’t know for sure this is the real John Hudson and even if it is, does that make you the authority on all facts of every nature? Didn’t Lipitz sign her own name to her report? She must be right — she used her real name. Just applying your own “logic.”
Since you focus on the errors rather than the actual numbers — and with your vast expertise on comprehensive finance — we know that the real numbers — the true facts — the real deal — we know how much the sewer system costs. That you focus on something intangible is proof you have nothing tangible and are making an accusation without proof as you have always done.
Why can’t you show us the proof directly what the sewer system costs and what the actual fair amount of a resident’s bill should be?
What about the corrected financial statement that appeared in the Community Voice? Isn’t that just as much proof as the earlier erroneous one? Why not use correct numbers and prove your case? I know why. The correct numbers prove you wrong. You must point to the man behind the curtain and the locked closet no one can ever open.
Mr. “Wellington”: You won’t discuss people. You won’t even discuss your real name.
How do you know that I’m not an accountant? I’m a graduate of the Cal School of Business Administration with a field of emphasis in finance. In fact, I’ve had a couple of very interesting accounting jobs, although I was never a CPA.
If those “clerical errors” were in reality refunds of overpayments as you claim, Lipitz would have said so. It would certainly be less embarrassing to say that. She didn’t. She said that they were “clerical errors”. These “overpayments” are simply sopmething that you made up.
The real problem with government finance is that auditors are selected by government officials. This is akin to allowing the defendant to choose the judge. The auditor knows that if he blows the whistle he will not be employed by that city in the future and will not be employed by any city that knows he blew the whistle.
The scandal in the City of Bell is a great example of this. The Bell city auditors, Meyer, Hoffman McCann, gave the City of Bell a clean bill of health for several years before the Bell city council was indicted last year. Meyer, Hoffman & McCann is still the auditor for a great many public entities in southern California because they don’t want an auditor that will expose the corruption. Only the City of Riverside fired Meyer, Hoffman & McCann. The same thing is going on in Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa and almost every other public entity.
How can any city offer a severance payment to an employee who was unable to do their job?
I’m not interested in this story until the Press Democrat publishes the terms of her separation. Why are the details absent from the story?
I’m pretty sure the “clerical errors” Hudson is talking about are errors made by outside agencies. There was a letter in the Community Voice from Joe Gaffney several months ago to the effect that the errors involved were overcharges Rohnert Park paid and that were refunded back to Rohnert Park.
The refund of these erroroneous overpayments was the hook Hudson used to claim that Rohnert Park was operating the sewer system at a surplus when in reality they overpaid and got a refund and on the books it appeared as if there was a big surplus in the sewer fund on a financial statement. The “numerous” errors were numerous overpayments and then the journal entries correcting those errors so it’s not surprising a non-accountant like Mr. Hudson yelled “Ah Ha!” just a little too soon without really knowing what the facts were.
The simple explanation is that the errors were discovered after the financial statement was published in the Community Voice. Also, the factual, truthful and accurate information about the costs of the sewer system is known and Hudson to keep the conspiracy going, must ignore the facts and focus on one piece of paper with an error rather than making his case on genuine and verifiable facts.
I’m sure I have to brace for a new round of personal attacks for pointing this out and once again be accused of being a co-conspirator and the usual line of malarkey.
Remember Mr. Hudson, great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.
Anyone who has doubts about whether Lipitz is competent can go to http://www.rpucc.org and click on the first two documents. It is a letter Lipitz sent me explaining that a financial statement she prepared and published in The Community Voice contained tens of millions of dollars in “clerical errors”.
The city council was supposedly relying on Lipitz’ financial information when it illegally voted to cancel the Measure L (sewer rate roll back) election result, an action similar to that of a military junta in a third world country cancelling an election result it didn’t like. Measure L is still the law in Rohnert Park. The action of the city council violates section 9217 of the Elections Code. The California Supreme Court has stated that a local government must get voter approval to change a measure that rolls back a rate for a property related service such as sewer. See Bighorn Desert View Water Agency v Verjil (2006) 39 Cal 4th 205, 219-220. Remember this when you receive your illegally high bill from the city this week.
Once again Gonzalez is providing false information to the media. He was the person that initiated the retirement diologue with Lipitz in his attempt to get her to leave. How much longer are the residents of Rohnert Park going to believe the “BS” that spews from this idiot. He has made it known to friends and associates that he is not here for the long haul and is using his position with Rohnert Park to enhance his resume.