Three members of the Cypress City Council voted to give the City Manager carte blanche with $100 million Capital Improvements Projects six weeks after a former director of Public Works accused him of “unlawful acts of misconduct.”
Questions still swirl in Cypress around a $183,000 settlement quietly paid amid charges by long-time department head Doug DancsHe publicly made serious charges against City Manager Peter Grant As yet, the charges remain unexplained to residents, neither have they been substantiated or refuted.
Nevertheless, Grant will have complete authority of the decision-making in hiring contractors with little or no timely oversight of the City Council for the projects following a split vote 3-2 by the Council.
“Currently, the process is these contracts come before the Council. We vote on them and approve them so residents can see them as the Council votes on them,” said Burke.
“The proposal is that process would be gone, and the city manager would approve them on his own and the council would find out afterwards in a quarterly update,” the mayor said.
“That strikes me as potentially a long time to wait,” he said.
The quickly assembled pilot program, called “streamlining,” puts all authority in the hands of an employee who has just emerged from a controversial settlement that cost the city hundreds of thousands involving public works projects.
Under the program, Grant will be free to spend $98 million on the city’s seven-year Capital Improvements plan without
Council approval after Council members Scott Minikus, Bonnie Peat, and Mayor Pro-tem Leo Medrano voted to “streamline” the approvals process of the attached 40-50 projects.
Burke and Dr. Kyle Chang both voted against giving Grant such authority, and they have both been asking a lot of questions about the CIP projects, including which ones were included and why.
In addition, the pair seemed to raise the ire of some by forming an ad-hoc sommittee to examine park spending and priorities.
Burke has also proposed expanding the shade structure at Maple Grove South, which he suggested could be added to the list. At the last meeting he questioned spending $80,000 on raising the roof in the executive boardroom rather than using the money to shade residents.
Grant is free to execute on his own, informing Burke that if he could get three votes after a July 14 meeting with the parks commission, the project could be added.
Minikus sidetracked a suggestion from Burke to simply list the approved contracts on the city’s agendas so the Council and the public could understand which contracts on which projects had been approved and to whom they had been awarded.
“You can ask for it,” said Minikus, opposing the public listing of the projects.
“The city manager and the directors are all very transparent with us throughout the entire process, it’s not like we’re being cut out from the process or being able to ask questions,” said Minikus.
“I don’t think we’re being stripped of our powers here or our ability to govern,” he said.
Chang, however, was befuddled at the speed with which the ruling majority passed the measure.
It is a pilot project adopted by no other city in the state.
Exasperated, he openly wondered why in the world his three colleagues were rushing to approve this unproven model, especially without so much as a presentation or any statements of justification from them.
“For the majority of residents, I think it’s obvious that this is the first time you guys have ever heard about it (streamlining pilot project) and it just popped up,” said Chang.
“I don’t think any of you guys knew the details about it or you guys would have commented on it,” he added.
Chang kept suggesting why the rush.
“So I am just hoping that maybe we could bring this back and have a discussion before we move to the pilot project,” said Chang. “Maybe we could have a presentation or a discussion before we move to the pilot program, especially if there’s a chance we might vote it down in the future.
Chang wondered why city officials made no presentation on why and how the project would be beneficial to the city.
With a substitute motion and three votes, the contract approvals process and some oversight was taken from the Council as the city approved spending $100 million of taxpayer dollars on Capital Improvement Projects through 2032.