101 Ash Street Asbestos Debacle
I was the first person in the city to call out the 101 Ash Street asbestos debacle as a deliberate fraud, and as chair of the Audit Committee I have worked with the city auditor to create a due diligence checklist to guide future real estate acquisitions.
Fully Utilizing The Business Cooperation Program
In a 2018 performance audit, the city auditor identified the Business Cooperation Program as being under-utilized by the city. The Business Cooperation Program, managed by the Economic Development Department, was created to take advantage of state guidelines that allow cities to capture additional tax revenues from large projects.
By providing a tax rebate of 25% of the local 1% sales or use tax paid in connection with San Diego-based operations, the program allows the city to capture tax revenues that would otherwise be distributed to other cities within the county.
The city auditor found that other cities were using the program much more effectively and recommended that the city do so as well, but this recommendation languished and was still not implemented when I became chair of the Audit Committee in 2021.
Due to my focus on this audit at multiple committee meetings and pushing for the program to be used, the city has retained a sales tax consultant to assist with services associated with this program.
Utilizing the Business Cooperation Program on large projects would almost certainly result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenues for the city, which can then be used to fund projects and services for San Diegans.
