Measure Z: Time for the city to stop passing the buck

It got worse. City Clerk Rachel Clark said she and an employee in her office knew about it for months. Clark said she promptly told finance director Barbara Pachon, who also knew of the noncompliance for months.

As far as the Sun can tell, these city officials did nothing with that information. Clark has said she expected Pachon to take the info to the state agency responsible for collecting the sales tax, but there is no proof that that happened.

Pachon may or may not have told the state Board of Equalization. We don't know because she won't answer questions about it.

We do know that Pachon did not tell her boss, City Manager Fred Wilson, because on Aug. 31 he said he had no idea the tax wasn't being collected.

While Pachon and Clark knew about this, Wilson and Pachon presented to the public information showing that Z receipts were significanly belowe expectations, and they would have to tighten their belts on spending.

No mention of Wal Mart, Circle K, or any other businesses not actually collecting the tax.

Now, Wilson and the city's state-run news service, Community Connection, have struck back. They say the Sun, ie this reporter, "did not accurately characterize the collection of Measure Z funds."

Wilson went on, in a tone so cumbersome and muddy that every line was hacked apart by the sarcastic pen of Red County blogger Joseph Turner, who called the explanation "bureacratic crap."

Wilson basically wrote that the fact that huge businesses weren't collecting Measure Z had nothing to do with the downwardly revised receipts because BOE hasn't yet counted them.

Fine.

But Wilson never says anything about his employee, Pachon, keeping crucial information about noncollection from him.

He never even acknowledges that top public officials DID NOTHING to remedy the situation.

Councilman Neil Derry said he was shocked nobody simply picked up the phone and told a manager they weren't complying with the new law, and they should because it's going to cost them thousands of dollars. Not exactly a "business friendly" policy.

This reporter, of course, did pick up the phone. I called Wal Mart executives, who responded by changing their policy to comply with the law that day. I called Circle K too, and they changed theirs immediately after the story hit the paper.

If the public, ie the Sun's readership, is seeing the laws it democratically approved being shirked, this newspaper is going to ask questions about it. If city leaders aren't handling it, we will, and we'll hold them accountable.

I won't begrudge Wilson his point, but I should note that the Sun's reports said very clearly that BOE and city officials insisted that no money would be lost by the city.

I will say this: The Sun's reporting shows indisputably:

1) Huge businesses lost thousands of dollars by not collecting the new tax while city officials knew what was going on and did nothing to inform the businesses directly.

2) It shows the law was broken while city officials knew and did nothing to directly stop it, ie. call on the store.

3) It shows public officials were reporting on Z projections without ever mentioning the specter of noncompliance by major businesses.

4) It shows that the finance director, Barbara Pachon, never told her boss, City Manager Fred Wilson, the disturbing news she had learned about Wal Mart not collecting the Measure Z tax.

5) It shows that city officials were more concerned with not talking than explaining their actions to the public. Pachon did not respond to at least four calls by this reporter in the span of two days.

6) That major retailers were not collecting the tax, calling into question whether an untold number of other businesses also weren't collecting.

The last point on this episode is a good one: City Clerk Rachel Clark came in Thursday for a podcast, as have all candidates up for election this November (Wilson and Pachon are not elected officials).

Asked directly why she and Pachon didn't do more with the information to which they were privy, like calling the store manager, Clark said they probably should have. You'll hear it soon when the podcasts are launched on the Sun's Election 2007 Web site.

One official has taken responsibility for inaction. Clark's coming clean makes Wilson's decision to blame the paper and the BOE, and take absolutely no responsibility for city inaction, all the more glaring.

Since Wilson has gone to the relatively extraordinary lengths of writing an Op-Ed piece to the Sun and the city has issued the same explanation on its taxpayer funded news service, the Sun will have to revisit this issue.

Next question: How do we know any of those businesses, like Wal-Mart, which have Highland mailing addresses have been paying tax to San Bernardino at all?

Exactly, we don't. We want proof.

And to lend even greater credence to that question, Clark revealed in her podcast that just a few years ago her office discovered a cluster of city businesses that, amazingly, had long been paying their taxes to Colton because, you guessed it, there was a murky boundary ...

hmmm ...