Tracy's "Hamburgergate"
City Managers have a unique way of getting into hot water. Too many of them seem willing to cut corners for personal gain. Take, for instance, former Tracy City Manager Leon Churchill. Mr. Churchill apparently had a habit of charging room service meals, especially hamburgers with all fixing, on the City credit card and not reimbursing the City coffers. This habit became known as “hamburgergate” around city hall and eventually the city council in a closed session told him to quit this nonsense.
But like Wimpy, the allure of a hamburger was too strong, and Mr. Churchill continued charging his room service burgers to the City credit card.
At last, it became too much, and the City Council dismissed Mr. Churchill. You can read more about that here.
But Mr. Churchill’s city manager colleagues have their own approaches to using taxpayer money for personal gain. For instance, Michael Tubbs’ personally appointed city manager, Kurt Wilson, attended graduate school while he was Stockton City Manager, taking multiple days off at a time to participate in person in graduate classes held at Northeastern University located in Boston. He did not claim these absences as vacation days and was full paid for attending the classes.
After he received his Ph.D. Mr. Wilson asked the City to reimburse him for $120,000 in educational costs! We learned this from recent public court filings by the City in response to the unlawful dismissal lawsuit Mr. Wilson filed against Stockton.
Wilson can thank Stockton taxpayers for his personal education!
According to the public court documents the City Council paid a portion of Wilson’s tuition, but we cannot tell how much. Why? Because Wilson kicked the City Attorney out of a closed session and then wrongly advised the City Council that it could pay him the money without telling the public. No one but Wilson and the City Council knows how much taxpayer money Wilson received for missing work. Wilson was eventually fired by the City Council. You can read more here.
This repeated misbehavior by city managers leads us to question some strange circumstances surrounding the hiring of Tracy’s current city manager, Jenny Haruyama. More later!
