Roger Berg Claims Kapanicas' "Truth and Ethics are Above Reproach"

Roger,

In response to my previous post you said, you still stand by your claim that Kapanicas’ “truth and ethics are above reproach”?

Help me to understand your position.

The City Council votes to voluntary join WRCOG’s TUMF program. Council directs staff to charge developers TUMF fees. The City Manager, Kapanicas, collects TUMF fees from developers. Then, against the explicit direction of the council, instead of remitting those fees to WRCOG, he instructs staff to direct the funds to Beaumont "go it alone" projects and direct millions of TUMF dollars to Urban Logic, the company jointly owned by the City’s Director of Planning, Director of Economic Development, and Director of Public Works. A true 1090 violation.

And…

Beginning in 2008 through his departure in 2015, Kapanicas works with Finance Director Bill Aylward to direct fund transfers, depleting all the city‘s reserves. He employs a City-wide strategy to issue millions more dollars of CFD debt on Beaumont home owners to provide the funding needed to keep his financial crisis hidden.

Then…

Beginning with your State of the City address in 2013, he instructs you and Brenda Knight, to claim in your message to the citizens there are $11 million in reserves. Implying at the time that if there was an emergency, the City had $11 million in liquid funds to draw from. You have incorrectly tried to argue that equity equals reserves by your ignorant statement that assets minus liabilities equals reserves but you fail to explain, if there was a natural disaster or other emergency, how the City could liquidate the non-cash assets. Who would buy one of our streets?

Also…

During this time, Kapanicas instructs City auditors to repeatedly report a questionable RDA loan as an asset in order to hide the millions of dollars in annual deficit spending, and to further the deception and deepen the financial crisis on the citizens of Beaumont.

Today…

Now be careful here…

Everyone would understand, especially your lawyer, if you refuse to answer the following questions and exercise your 5th amendment right against self-incrimination...

Since the investigation by the District Attorney began, you have claimed that you were fully aware of Kapanicas’ actions.

Did you know he was disobeying council direction and not remitting the TUMF funds to WRCOG?

Were you aware of the true financial health of the City?

Did you know when you ran for re-election in 2014 that all of the City’s reserve funds had been drawn down to nothing?

Do you still stand by your claim that Kapanicas’ “truth and ethics are above reproach”?