AD-73 Update: Jeff Corless Vindicated from San Clemente Smears (Which the City is Still Funding). 4th AUDIT Confirms Billing Was Fair and Accurate

I’ve been told by anonymous sources that Harvey Englander has made a ton of money from the City of San Clemente. It does not show up as a line item in the budget – so if true, it means that Englander has been getting paid by one of the city’s other contractors. This may be the attorney they are using to constantly sue the TCA? (Speaking of audits, it might be a good idea to rip open the books of San Clemente)

Speaking of a taxpayer funded agitation campaign: (From the local paper that is in the bag for Bill Brough)

The city of San Clemente is again asking local residents to submit letters to state lawmakers, expressing support for legislation that would strip the authority of the Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA).

The measure, Assembly Bill 1273, which Assemblymember Bill Brough introduced last spring, proposes to restrict the joint powers authority from creating new toll roads while requiring the agencies to pay down the debt incurred from building its roads.

OF course William “Bill” Brough in his drunken stupor thinks this Bill is the cause of his demise. (Ignore the dozen or so women and the hundreds of campaign finance violations) It must be nice as a city to empty the treasury to engage in public policy…

The TCA has strongly opposed the legislation, calling it “an assault on local control.” In a letter Michael Kraman, the TCA’s chief executive, wrote to the chair of the Assembly committee, Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, he stated that the bill would be a job killer, circumvents the California Environmental Quality Act process and “will lead to dirtier air in Orange County,” among other things.

“This bill was introduced as part of broader tactics by the City of San Clemente to discredit the TCA and disrupt the environmental review process for the South County Traffic Relief Effort,” Kraman wrote.

The TCA is currently working with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) on the Relief Effort—the series of proposed routes meant to “improve north-south mobility in South Orange County and accommodate regional travel demand.”

The issue is that Bill Brough lied to a bunch of people about this, not even telling his own staff he was going to run this bill. But, of course Brough lied to me when I asked him via staff in 2018 about his sexual misconduct and weather or not he have been investigated for it.

Speaking of lies – the City of San Clemente and Harvey Englander are now 0-4 on audits. Unfortunately for them, Jeff Corless and Venture Strategic did their job correctly.

IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) released the results of an external audit of their communications and outreach contract with Venture Strategic, Inc. (VSI). Flatly contradicting false statements made by politically motivated actors and reported in certain news articles, the audit found no malfeasance, a 99.88% billing accuracy rate, a net underbilling to the TCA of $5,761, and a satisfactory review of assigned task orders and corresponding deliverables and work product.

The audit was conducted by Crowe LLP, which, in the course of the audit, reviewed VSI’s compliance with the contract, billing records and invoices, and work product in comparison to required deliverables.

The audit noted that the complex billing process required under the TCA contract, which involved 12,000 individual lines of billing entries over a four-year period, was susceptible to clerical and input errors.  Nonetheless, VSI’s transparent and accountable internal procedures resulted in only a 0.12% error rate and a net underbilling of $5,761, which cut in the favor of TCA.  These results were consistent with the findings of two previous TCA internal audits and an additional external audit.

TCA awarded VSI the contract in October 2015 following a competitive procurement process, that was open, transparent, vetted by multiple committees, and unanimously approved by the F/ETCA Board of Directors in public.  All tasks, billing rates, and billing procedures were stipulated by, and received regular oversight from, TCA management and board members. It has been reported that the false accusations contained in the above-referenced news articles were precipitated by a VSI competitor who had unsuccessfully bid on the contract.

Contrary to those false claims, and due to VSI’s outstanding work, the TCA Board of Directors voluntarily extended the contract on three separate occasions over the course of a nearly four-year period.  Near the conclusion of the contract on April 4^th, 2019, the TCA sent a letter to VSI that stated the following:

“We appreciate your service to the Agencies over the last few years, working with us to implement a robust and innovative communications, media and outreach effort; this effort has made it possible to engage many members of the public in Orange County, especially Southern Orange County, to be involved in the effort to explore traffic congestion relief solutions.”

Venture Strategic spokesperson Tim Lineberger commented: “We are extremely proud of our entire team’s work on the TCA project and are pleased that the internal and external audits completely vindicate us from the baseless political attacks and wrongful insinuations made by self-interested actors throughout the past year. We will consider any further statements that intentionally or recklessly run counter to the facts reported in these audits as defamatory.”

Tim Lineberger 714.676.4317

But hey, San Clemente has Gene James on their City Council now. The drama is far from over. The spiritual basis (not distilled spirits) of AB1273 was the alleged debt and corruption of the TCA. The Venture Strategic Contract was gaslighted as one of the top issues. Bill Brough’s bill was lied about and born from a lie, seems consistent with his background, his character and his life. To be continued…