Modesto mayor uses Facebook to throw shade at colleagues after contentious meeting

Two days after a nasty City Council meeting that included council members slinging mud at one another in a dispute over the former city auditor, Mayor Ted Brandvold on Thursday threw some of his own shade on social media.

“Myself, along with several of my fellow colleagues, want an independent and professional City Auditor responsible directly to your elected City Council so we can hold your Modesto city government accountable to the people,” the mayor wrote in a Facebook post.

“But some of your Council members want a very weak auditor controlled by other City employees so that City Hall mistakes continue to be covered up as they always have been in the past,” the mayor continued. “I expect better, I expect accountability to the public. Let me know what you think!”

The rift is over former City Auditor Monica Houston, who left in November after less than eight months on the job after accepting a $225,000 settlement that was approved by council members on a 4-3 vote.

Council members Mani Grewal, Jenny Kenoyer, Doug Ridenour and Bill Zoslocki voted for the separation agreement, while Brandvold and council members Kristi Ah You and Tony Madrigal did not.

Houston is African-American and her departure came with claims by some community members that she faced racism and retaliation for what she might have uncovered. But some council members have accused Ah You of flaming the controversy by leaking inaccurate information from the council’s closed session, confidential discussions.

And Houston didn’t help herself when she wrote a memo about a highway project that raised red flags about Modesto using Meyers Nave — the law firm that serves as Modesto’s city attorney — for the legal work for the Highway 132 project. The red flags turned out not to be true.

She also presented a proposed charter for the City Council’s Audit Committee that greatly expanded the power of the auditor and the committee. That alarmed some council members who saw it as a power grab by the mayor, who would chair the committee. Brandvold says that is not true.

But it’s true Modesto has had its share of mishaps in recent years, including roughly $16 million in unauthorized spending because of breakdowns in purchasing and contract administration and most recently the financial meltdown of one of its insurance carriers, resulting in the city being on the hook for at least $6.6 million in unpaid medical claims.

Brandvold declined to get into specifics in an interview about his post, including which city officials he doesn’t trust and what mistakes are being covered up, saying he wanted to reserve his comments for the council’s May 7 meeting. That is when the council will discuss the city auditor position.

“I’m not going to get into that at this point,” he said. “I don’t want to do this. I pretty much stand by the post, and we are bringing this to the council for discussion.”

A 2008 amendment to the city charter created the position of city auditor. A previous council in 2010 fired the city’s first auditor after 18 months for failing to meet its expectations in uncovering inefficiencies in city operations.

Modesto then hired the consulting firm Moss Adams to serve as its city auditor before the council agreed with Brandvold to replace the firm with an in-house auditor.

This story was originally published April 27, 2019 at 4:41 PM.