Today’s East Bay Express is the first medium to go public with a long simmering issue involving credit card use by Richmond department heads, in his case one particular department head. What the article didn’t say is that there were also significant late payment fees associated with the credit cards – something that presumably would not have happened if employees were using their own cards instead of City cards. Nobody asked me, but I would take all the credit cards away from all of them.

Both Batchelor and Samsell may be correct in their assertions that the expenditures were technically and legally defensible, but in the current effort to curb City spending in favor of preserving essential services, it just doesn’t look good. And in fairness to Batchelor, all of this happened before his watch. As far as wining and dining prospective recruitment prospects, perhaps Williams should have taken some prospects for City Attorney Administrative Assistant to Hidden City for a $14.00 lunch. He might have snagged a live one instead of giving up and continuing to pay a temp agency $35 per hour. If he had asked, I might have even gone next door and sprung for dessert.  

I eat out for lunch a lot, but I seem to get along okay on for a few bucks at Rosa Maria’s, Salutes or Little Louie’s. We also do a lot of “brownbagging” for noon meetings in our conference room or send out for a tray of sandwiches. This seems to work pretty well in the private sector, but I guess the public sector has higher standards.

East Bay Express

November 24, 2004

Richmond Credit Cards

With all the fuss about the FBI probe of state Senator Don Perata, Feeder has had hardly any time to pester its favorite ethically challenged municipality, Richmond. But someone was kind enough to pass along a packet recently with the ominous, if misspelled, cover sheet, "On Taxpayers Dollars," which contained six months of credit card statements and receipts for human resources director Cedric Williams. The statements, which span February to August, show that Williams charged several meals at posh eateries such as HS Lordships and Salute e Vita. The grand total? Nearly $2,400 in meals and catering.

Reached by phone, Williams coolly explained that the city manager had already investigated the meal expenses and concluded that they were all made during legit city-related business. Finance director Pat Samsell told Feeder that, for instance, one expense was for a going-away party for the retiring fire chief. In other cases, Williams would treat prospective hires to a nice meal. "You have a person interviewing here for eight hours; when you take them to lunch you don't take them to McDonald's," Samsell says.

Still, you'd expect more thriftiness from officials in a city that has had to lay off hundreds of employees and cut library hours to balance a $35 million budget deficit.