BetterYuma.org questions City’s decisions behind the PAAC

The controversial allegations surrounding the Pacific Avenue Athletic Complex (PAAC) led to Yuma city officials being invited to BetterYuma.org’s meeting Tuesday night.

“BetterYuma.org holds Yuma area governments to be accountable, transparent, and responsive to their taxpayers and to their communities for fair fees, policies, and regulations that allow existing businesses to flourish and will attract new, smart growth,” according to their website.

Henry Valenzuela, better known as “The Guy with a Calculator” explained that officials were presented with a list of questions before the meeting, but he said they fell short.

The first issue he addressed in an email to News 11 is that City of Yuma administrator Greg Wilkinson did not answer whether the Yuma City Council, the media, and the public were misled during the presentation he gave at the City Council meeting on October 17.

Wilkinson said that neither of the parties mentioned was misled.

“[The City of Yuma] told the public exactly what we were going to do. Council approved it and we built it,” said Wilkinson.

Valenzuela also addressed concerns about the two percent fund.

“Second, a BetterYuma.org [BYO] member pointed out that in January 2015 Yuma City Council was advised that the two percent fund would not be sufficient to cover the cost of the annual PAAC Bond Payment. The other problem is that after the [January] 2015 meeting, previous finance director [who] told [the] council and the public that the two percent fund would cover the cost. This is important because this shows they may have known in advance the two percent fund would not be enough. At the same time, they were telling the Council, media, and public that it would. Now the two percent fund is, in fact, being overspent and going to zero. What will our city do when we don’t have enough two percent fund to support all of our parks and pools,” said Valenzuela.

Wilkinson said the statement was false.

“That is a totally false statement. The two percent fund has a $7 million revenue every year. We only have a requirement to spend about 3.5 million out of it. So there is a $3.5 million surplus in the account. It goes back to they have no concept, they don’t understand a revenue fund. There’s no debt in that fund. It cannot go bankrupt. They just don’t have the concepts of general accounting,” said Wilkinson. “How are you going to go bankrupt if you don’t have any debt? Their whole premise to the question is wrong.”

Valenzuela then said Wilkinson admitted there was an oversight of $389,225 from the Development Fee annual report.

Wilkinson said there was indeed a mistake.

“What it was was yes, there was a mistake when we went from finance who does all the accounting and they posted it as part of a development fee posting. One of the numbers did not carry down,” said Wilkinson.

Valenzuela also claimed Wilkinson said the $555,000 was transferred out of the development fee fund.

“He admitted the $555,000 money mysteriously transferred out of the
development fee fund in the 17/18 Development free Annual Report was
actually used to help pay the PAAC Bond Payment. This is a problem because it was not in the approved [infrastructure improvement plan] , it was not in the 17/18 Council Approved Budget, and it was not ever approved by City Council,” said Valenzuela.

Wilkinson responded by saying Valenzuela’s statement is a lie.

“The $555,000 was in accounting when you pull money out of an account, you make a transfer out. That’s how you account it. That money was spent on the PAAC as it should be to make half of the payment. Half the payment came out of development fees. There’s nothing mysterious about it. It’s like standard accounting,” said Wilkinson.

Wilkinson hopes the current audit of the PAAC will restore trust in the City of Yuma.

“Our police officers impress me every day. We do an audit every year. We’ve never had a finding. The bonds are reviewed by bonds attorneys and even though we’ve audited stuff like 20 sometimes we’re going to go back and do it once again,” said Wilkinson.