Two councilmembers say financial waste can’t continue in Calabasas

By Michael Picarella Acorn Staff Writer

To eliminate waste in Calabasas, the city council vowed last week to take a deeper look into the city’s finances.

Calabasas Mayor Pro Tem Michael Harrison last week questioned an auditor whose evaluation of the city’s finances, in Harrison’s opinion, seemed to be incomplete. Harrison said he would seek more answers from the auditor—and most likely find another bookkeeper to do a more complete and thorough job.

"I made a speech in September of 2001 about the fleecing of Calabasas," Harrison said in an interview last week.

"I first noticed it in August of 2001 when we suddenly started getting tens of thousands of dollars of bills for Fran Pavley’s special hearing in Woodland Hills at El Camino High School (regarding the battle against Ahmanson Ranch development) and I was thinking, ‘Why are we getting those bills? We didn’t authorize any of those things.’ That’s when the red flags went off."

Harrison began to scrutinize the city’s financial documents more closely. "I started seeing crazy bills and no financial controls whatsoever, no legal controls whatsoever and no management controls whatsoever," Harrison said.

City Councilman Barry Groveman said he, too, has issues with how the city keeps its books. "There’s going to be some changes," Groveman said, "because there is a system that is in serious need of reform."

As a councilmember, Groveman said, "You’re presented with warrants (the city’s check registers) that have to be approved ... I’m diligent and I’m thoughtful the way I go about it and I need to see authorizations and back up to support the warrants. And as I looked, I didn’t find sufficient back up ... Some of these things were not authorized. In other cases, they may have been authorized, but nobody has any evidence of whether they were authorized because we didn’t have proper procedures for recording resolutions and making notes in open and public sessions."

Groveman said some of the unconventional practices involve the city’s Ahmanson Ranch litigation.

Harrison, an attorney, has said repeatedly during council meetings that he doesn’t understand the bills regarding the city’s legal fight against Ahmanson Ranch. And the invoices were never adequately explained by the city’s legal counsel against Ahmanson, attorney Katherine Stone, even after Harrison questioned the billing, he said.

Ahmanson opponents spoke during the public comments portion of last week’s council meeting regarding Stone’s importance.

They said she couldn’t be required to re-bid her position as part of a recently approved initiative process because she’s worked on the case for so long. No one else could replace Stone, they said, because of her knowledge about the Ahmanson project and related lawsuits. Even asking her to re-bid for her services, they said, could jeopardize the case.

Harrison said Stone spent money in conjunction with a private organization also fighting Ahmanson Ranch—but billed Calabasas. The council, Harrison said, never okayed expenditures regarding a "Rally for the Ranch" event. And Stone made other unauthorized billings for which she’s responsible, Harrison said.

Stone didn’t return phone calls to respond to Harrison’s allegations for this story. On her behalf, former councilwoman and mayor Janice Lee said during council meetings that she fully supported Stone and that she never suspected foul play.

Some Ahmanson opponents have accused Harrison of being pro-Ahmanson, Harrison said, because of his statements against Stone.

"That’s crazy, fanatic thinking. Katherine Stone has been the most harmful part of our Ahmanson battle," Harrison said. "If necessary—if Katherine Stone fanatics keep trying to defend her—we will release documents showing what kind of things are happening," Harrison said.

"She’s not going to remain. She’s going to be gone shortly ... We will obtain new, confident, intelligent, honest Ahmanson counsel ... You can’t win a battle with a fanatic, otherwise Hitler would have won World War II. Knowledge isn’t enough," said Harrison.

An auditor recently examined the finances in the city of Calabasas. Harrison said that report was incomplete and after lengthy questioning of the auditor at last week’s council meeting, he found the auditor’s responses to be unsatisfactory.

Groveman agreed that the audit was incomplete.

"I only asked (several) follow-up questions," Groveman said. "One was, ‘Did you interview the staff?’ ‘No.’ he said. ‘If you don’t interview the staff, how do you know if there’s something wrong?’ And ‘Did you audit the contracts and the procedures to make sure we have checks and balances?’" Groveman asked. "‘No,’ (the auditor) said. "‘Were there double payments?’ ‘I don’t know.’ What kind of an audit is that?—Not one that I’m going to approve."

A more detailed audit, Harrison said, would probably generate even more questions.

"We will get a real auditor and we will get to the bottom of this," Harrison said in an interview. "Right now, I’m going to be interviewing that auditor and I’m going to be interviewing other auditors and bring it back to the council. And guess what? We will approve a complete internal audit."

The process to question the current auditor and interview for a new one will take several months, according to Harrison.