Pleasanton mayor to call for forensic audit of city operations
By Roger Sims, Journal staff
PLEASANTON – Pleasanton Mayor Mathew Young is expected to call for a forensic audit of the city’s budget during the city council meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 13.
In an interview on Monday, Oct. 12, Young said his hope is that the audit will help answer questions about the city budget that both the city council and residents have.
Pleasanton residents wrestle with the highest mill levy for cities in the county, and many have charged that funds coming from property taxes have been misappropriated or misused.
He said his hope is that the forensic audit, which will go deeper than just the numbers, will show that city officials for the past decade have acted in the best interest of taxpayers and residents.
Also on the agenda are appointments of applicants to fill several posts that have remained vacant.
“The city has been understaffed for far too long,” he said.
The council met in a special meeting on Friday to review applications for jobs. Two of the jobs needing to be filled are the city police chief and the city clerk. However, the public works department has been short staffed for a long time.
The mayor did give an update on the pumps at the East Lake that provide water to the city’s water plant. He said the new pumps have been installed and are working properly.
The council is also expected to lift restrictions on boats in the lake that have been in place several weeks as crews work to install the two new pumps.
At the Sept. 28 council meeting, water operator Josh Ralle told the council that the pipes delivering water from the old pumps were full of holes from where the alkaline lake water had eaten away at the iron pumps coming from the pumps. The replacement for those pipes are stainless stain as are the pump casings themselves.
The perforations in the pipes severely hampered the pumps pushing enough water through the lines. When a higher pressure temporary pump was installed, it pushed a considerable amount of built-up sludge out of the 3 mile supply line to the city’s treatment plant. Ralle said he was able to divert that sludge water out of the system before it reached the filters.
Ralle, who holds water operator certification I and II, is in the process of getting his wastewater operator’s certification as well. In appreciation for his work, the city council voted to raise his salary to $25 an hour at the Sept. 28 meeting.
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