Modesto council member discloses luxury hotel stay, flight upgrades for StanCOG trips
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Modesto council member confirms Ritz stay, first-class flights for StanCOG work.
- Grand jury criticized lavish travel, prompting director's paid leave and audit review.
- Officials cited weak oversight and missing controls as causes for unchecked spending.
Modesto Councilmember Rosa Escutia-Braaton cleared up a mystery in the scathing grand jury report on Stanislaus Council of Governments spending of taxpayer dollars.
In an interview Monday, she disclosed that she’s the unnamed Modesto council member in the report who stayed in a Ritz-Carlton hotel for a National Association of Regional Councils conference in Washington, D.C.
The councilwoman also said she flew first class on trips for StanCOG business and took a trip to a conference in Detroit. The round-trip airfare for the Detroit trip was $4,000, the grand jury report said.
The report, issued last week, was sharply critical of Executive Director Rosa De Leon Park’s management of StanCOG and what it called lavish spending of public funds. The report did not include the names of StanCOG staff or local officials who might have stayed in luxury hotels or dined in expensive restaurants at taxpayers’ expense.
Escutia-Braaton said she upgraded to first-class seating while traveling on StanCOG business and chose to pay the difference out-of-pocket for the upgrades. During the phone interview, she said she was “doing my best” to collect credit card receipts and records to prove she paid the difference.
One stated reason Escutia-Braaton spoke publicly was to complain the grand jury never contacted her during its investigation of travel expenses. “I honestly feel that was wrong,” she said. “Several individuals were interviewed by the grand jury yet I was not afforded that same basic due process and I am perplexed as to why.”
In an email Wednesday, Escutia-Braaton pointed out an inaccuracy in the grand jury report and challenged the validity of the findings. Tuesday, she said: “As an elected official, I believe the taxpayers’ dollars should be safeguarded. I fully support looking into these allegations. We will take proper action at the conclusion of this.”
Escutia-Braaton said StanCOG policy has allowed first-class flights for policy board members traveling to the East Coast to seek federal funding or attend conferences. The agency, consisting of representatives from the county and its cities, oversees transportation services in Stanislaus County.
The grand jury report states that not everyone agreed first-class travel was acceptable. Records showed that board members flew economy class, and one told the jury he confronted De Leon Park after staff purchased a first-class ticket for him. He was concerned how it would appear to Central Valley taxpayers, who live in one of the poorest regions of the country, and cautioned De Leon Park not to do it again.
But “the excessive cost of subsequent flights and myriad upcharges which seem to be upgrades suggests that this wasteful behavior continued,” the report said.
The StanCOG policy board decided Monday night to place De Leon Park on leave indefinitely pending an audit of past spending and a review of her alleged verbal mistreatment of staff. Some people were critical of the board’s 11-to-5 vote to approve paid leave of $25,000 a month for De Leon Park.
Stockton attorney Kevin Rooney, representing De Leon Park, said in a statement Monday that there are “many inaccuracies and misrepresentations” in the grand jury’s report and that his client and her staff had provided voluminous and accurate documentation in response to the inquiries.
Escutia-Braaton, who voted with the majority, said Tuesday that the decision to place De Leon Park on leave was a strong action in response to the grand jury findings.
She said she could not explain the $4,000 airfare for her trip to a National Association of Regional Councils meeting in Detroit. The council member, who’s a NARC board member, said she did not recall a cost of $4,000. She said she’s willing to reimburse if an audit determines the airfare costs were excessive.
She claimed the hotels where policy board members stayed were at the discretion of StanCOG staff. She said she recalled asking staff why she was given a reservation at the Ritz-Carlton and was told the platinum status of StanCOG’s credit card may lower the rates at such hotels.
Escutia-Braaton said she didn’t have time to explore the hotel’s amenities during the conference. Ritz-Carlton is a hospitality chain that says it “sets the standard for luxury experiences the world over.” She said the travel for StanCOG purposes is not a joy for her, as it takes her away from her family.
“At no point was I out to have a vacation on the taxpayer dollar,” Escutia-Braaton said. “I went to Washington for serious business and advocacy for transportation dollars. I was never given a choice of where to stay and never made that decision.”
The grand jury said the executive director’s credit card was used to book 13 stays at Ritz-Carlton hotels in five cities between February 2020 and March 2024, with the charges totaling $33,000. The costs ranged from $1,938 for two nights to $3,900 for four nights and three times exceeded $1,000 per night. The average charge for 39 nights was $846.
The report did not identify which officials stayed in the luxury hotels.
The jury investigation found the rate at the Hyatt hotel that hosted a February 2024 conference in Washington was $309 per night, compared to $600 per night for the Ritz-Carlton.
Escutia-Braaton said she’s been mistakenly connected to a conference in Monterey that raised concerns about expensive restaurant bills in the grand jury report. She said she has never gone to Monterey on StanCOG business.
The report said the food alone for the three-day, two-night Monterey visit was $2,200 for the two known people in attendance — De Leon Park and a board member.
The bills included $790 at the Chart House restaurant, a $200 per person reception-style dinner called “A Night at the Aquarium” and $565 for dinner at the Sardine Factory.
Councilman favors an audit
Asked if he had gone to Monterey, David Wright, who voted in favor of the paid leave and is another Modesto council member on the StanCOG board, said Tuesday he never has traveled for agency business. Mayor Sue Zwahlen, Modesto’s third member of the policy board, said she was not on the Monterey trip, either.
Wright said the grand jury findings are a big concern. “That is why we are doing a forensic audit to check out all the information,” he said. “I don’t know if everything in the grand jury report is correct.”
County Supervisor Terry Withrow, who voted against the paid leave and is one of five county representatives on the policy board, said the high degree of staff turnover resulted in an absence of internal controls at StanCOG.
“We are all upset about (the grand jury findings),” Withrow said. “It’s taxpayer money and it should not be spent like that. We want to get to the bottom of it and find out what happened.”
The grand jury noted that county auditor-controller oversight of StanCOG operations ceased with a change in the joint powers agreement in 2017. The auditor-controller has enforced strict county credit card policies since a 2003 spending scandal resulted in the departure of former county CEO Reagan Wilson.
Withrow said he doesn’t know whether removing auditor-controller monitoring of StanCOG was a mistake but evidently no other controls were put in place.
“As we had (staff) turnover and loss of the finance director, that is when these things started to happen,” Withrow said. “What are we doing staying at the Ritz? If we had a system in place, we would have people asking about that. There was a breakdown there.”
This story was originally published July 2, 2025 at 3:23 PM.
