The controversy started last year, when news broke that a city employee illegally issued building permits in Sacramento's flood-prone Natomas neighborhood. Natomas is under a federal moratorium on new development until the flood risk is reduced. That led to the audit. And the audit isn't pretty.
Vina: "In the report, it speaks to revenues that were not collected that should have been collected."
Interim City Manager Gus Vina blames an effort by the previous city manager, Ray Kerridge, to streamline bureaucracy in the planning and building process. He says that led to employees too far down the chain of command making poor decisions.
Vina: "Because of that open architecture and decisions being made really at the wrong level, then we ended up with decisions that violated the city charter as well as some of the state laws."
So was it just the culture of the department? Or was it corruption? Vina says that's what he'll look at next. He also hopes to recover some of the unpaid fees.
