Pokey Pavegate fallout: Taxpayers asked to clean up their own streets, while paying more taxes!

03 August 2015 (12:45 UTC-07 Tango 01)/11 Mordad 1394/16 Shawwal 1436/19 Jia-Shen 4713

For the past few weeks the Mormon dominated (74.5%) Gem State city of Pocatello has been running TV PSAs asking taxpaying residents to voluntarily clean out storm drains in their neighborhood streets. This comes after revelations of “abuse of authority” at the hands of the city’s Mormon mayor (“Blad is clearly conservative, something his Mormon, southern Idaho upbringing certainly influenced…”-Tara A. Rowe, commenting on Blad’s suprise 2009 election win), and a new investigation by the state Attorney General for a trend that’s hitting cities across the U.S.: Pavegate.

Pocatello’s storm clean up campaign (led by mascots Drip and Drop) is also part of a growing trend across the country, as cities supposedly don’t have the tax funding to pay their own road crews to do the clean-up, but in Pocatello’s case Pavegate makes the public service campaign questionable.

Pocatello’s (aka Pokey) Pavegate started back in June 2014, when residents noticed Pocatello road crews doing road work in other cities. This pissed off Pokey taxpayers because for years they’ve been told there wasn’t enough funding to tackle all the road work needed in Pocatello.

When the city council was first questioned about it, they denied it was happening. In July 2014, local TV station KPVI even questioned Pokey mayor Brian Blad about it, he actually denied knowing anything: “I don’t know if our crews were up there or not. I know our equipment was up there. We may have had crews up there. If we did, then there will be a swap where the County is doing the work for the City of Pocatello for us as well.”

In that instance KPVI was asking about Pokey road crews doing work for the city of McCammon. McCammon administrators indicated that Pokey administrators offered to save McCammon taxpayer money by doing needed road repairs for the cost of materials only, the labor was free (meaning Pokey taxpayers paid for the labor)!

By August 2014, city council members (who are part timers only) were concerned enough to pay for an independent investigation: “We’ve got to have the facts. We just don’t know at this point.”-Craig Cooper, council president

In September 2014, KPVI was basically told that what was to be called Pokey Pavegate was nothing more than semantics: “I’m confident that what they are looking at is not an invoice. What they are looking at is a work order……No we haven’t reimbursed the City of Pocatello for these costs.”-Kurk Bybee, attorney for the city

It is not uncommon for one city to hire-out its road crews to another city, and get paid for it. But in this case it seemed that the full time mayor indeed knew about the farming out of Pokey road crews to other cities (after denying it on local TV news) but did not charge for the labor, and the part time city council members continued to claim they knew nothing. Industrious taxpaying residents found out otherwise: “A large volume of documents secured by Pocatello resident Steven Medellin under a Freedom of Information request show numerous paving projects were done in Driggs and Teton County dating back to 2013 with no documentation showing payments to the city of Pocatello for the work.”–Out-of-town Pocatello paving projects spur audit (even at this point the mayor feigned no knowledge of the Pavegate)

These Pavegate lies by Mormon dominated city administration are just the tip of the iceberg, as residents have publicly questioned the jacking up of property taxes, the hiring-on of 30 new city employees, “secretive” projects and the seemingly sudden disappearance of millions of taxpayer funds.

In January 2015, Deanton & Company made public the results of their Pavegate investigation: “Although there appears to be an abuse of authority, because of the nature of fraud, no assurances can be given that fraud does not exist……..it became clear that various levels of management within the city of Pocatello do not fully understand their level of authority…….There was also a lack of supporting evidence of communication between management and….City Council.”

The quickly done investigation said Pokey taxpayers paid for at least $15,773 USD worth of labor costs, and in response the mayor adamantly stated that he would not seek reimbursement from the cities that benefitted from that labor: “…we’re going to move on and be done with it.”

In February 2015, the city’s own Chief Financial Officer, Joyce Stroschein, revealed that they’re basically missing $1.5-million! She blamed it on three ongoing projects in which there was no accountability in how the money was spent: “It’s all about cleaning house….. Cleaning up the project resolution because the projects have ended at this point.”

By April 2015, the Idaho Attorney General announced an investigation of his own. The investigation was pushed for by a Pocatello grass roots committee Taxpayers for Honest Government: “Taxpayers for Honest Government has methodically investigated and reviewed public information…and found that the city of Pocatello is in serious trouble, both financially and ethically….most of the problems facing the city of Pocatello are because of the abuse of power created by Mayor Blad’s secretive, closed-door governing style.”– Helen Delahunt-Avila

The disappearance of millions of taxpayer dollars, confirmed by the city’s own treasurer in February, should be noted because the mayor continually stated the city wasn’t hurting for money. Now Pokey tax payers are being asked to clean out the storm drains in their neighborhood streets.

In June 2015, despite missing millions in funding Pocatello created a new Public Information Officer job, hiring a former KPVI reporter as their new Public Information Officer. The first order of business for that PIO was reporting that Pokey administrators suddenly ordered road crews to put fresh blacktop on dozens of city streets, and then claim it was done in a way that saved taxpayers money. City administrators say they are now conducting an almost year long review of finances as “…a kind of review of how we look at ourselves.”

In July 2015, CFO Joyce Stroschein proposed jacking up taxes and fees for Pokey residents, in order to fund the city’s 2016 fiscal year.

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