Explain this to me...

 This is one of those rare days when I have two postings on the same day. This is the update for what’s below, based on an e-mailing from Jeanne Fancher, Pacific’s de-facto one-woman news media. My question is how did the state auditor miss the fact that for 10 years, Pacific wasn’t keeping its financial records properly?

Here’s what Jeanne writes in her e-mail:

Finance Director Garrison and her staff have found accounting miss-entries and re-entered data with the Correct BARS codes, going back 10 years. They are completing a yearly State Audit--- with fewer "questions" than in previous years. They have produced monthly Financial reports, updated the 2012 Budget, and produced the needed spreadsheets used by the Mayor and Council to propose and adopt the 2013 Budget—in half the time (or less) allocated in previous years. Ms Garrison is not shy about telling the Electeds that she follows the RCW rules stringently, and is not going to jail—for anyone.

What exactly does that mean? Does this mean we had non-competent and inefficient staff keeping our books for 10 years? When I served on the city council I openly acknowledged that finances were my weakness and I encouraged someone with those skills to emerge as an opposition candidate when I ran for re-election. So I find it interesting to learn that for ten years and under the eye of two different mayors, our records were not being kept properly. This statement raises the question whether this was typical of the city administration. So I ask again, what does that mean? 

Cy Sun is no superhero. But what I’m perceiving here is a possible celebration of how wonderful things are going to be now, without the slightest acknowledgement that without Cy Sun upsetting the applecart, this sloppy work would have continued.  The quotation about “not going to jail for anyone” represents a refreshing attitude that’s long overdue, because what the voters of Pacific have witnessed for some time is behavior by some public officials who probably should have spent some time in the slammer. And one of them is still on the payroll.

If Cy Sun gets recalled, it’s time. But maybe it’s also time to acknowledge that upsetting the applecart may be just what the doctor ordered—if Pacific can keep its nose clean from now on.