Special City Council Meeting 09-29-25

We're missing one counselor, Smith. Good evening. I'd like to call the special meeting of the Everett City Council to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Alcy Juin.

Present.

Councilor Councilor DiPierro. Present. Councilor Garcia.

Present.

Councilor Hanlon. Present. Councilor Marchese. Present. Council Matewsky. Council Pietrantonio. Present. Council Rogers. Here. Council Smith. Present. Council VanCampen. Present. And President Martins.

Present. We have 10 members present. We do have a quorum. Please join us in saluting the flag. So City Clerk Cornelia is attending an election training in D.C. today. Sir Legislative Aid Mangan will clerk the meeting. Councilor Matewsky has notified us of a previous family commitment. And tonight we only have one item on the agenda in public participation, but I do have a few announcements. I'd like to... Thank our residents online, in person, and on ECTV for their interest in checks and balances and transparency. It is the council's job to protect public funding. I want to ask residents attending in person to please reserve any comments and reactions for the public participation portion so we can have an orderly meeting. We will have to ask members being disruptive to please step out of the chambers if needed. Public participation tonight will only be about this one item on the agenda. According to our rules, I did receive a question. We cannot have signs in the chambers. And tonight, our attorney Petrini will open, the auditors will present, and the council members will be able to ask questions specifically related to the audit, the numbers, and the receipts in hand. And any follow-up questions to the administration will be written down by our clerk, and they'll be referred to the administration for response by the next meeting. So we do have a few physical copies of the presentation in the back. We can also provide them upon request if you need them. And we'll also attach them to the packet for our next meeting. And the chair will now entertain a motion to open public participation. So moved. Second. Motion has been made and seconded to open public participation. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Mr. Clerk, how many...

Madam President, we have eight people signed in. The first person is Stephanie Hanlon.

Thank you. And you will have two minutes. And if you could please also state your name and address for the record.

Okay. Thank you.

Stephanie Hanlon, Everett Street.

Okay.

So in February, the Massachusetts Inspector General.

I'm sorry, just give us one second to, it's working? Okay, let me get started again, sorry.

In February, the Massachusetts Inspector General reported that the Everett Mayor was overpaid $180,000 in longevity bonuses. The investigation found that the mayor's office misapplied the ordinance governing these payments and concealed them from both the city council and the public. Details from the report include improper payments. The city's longevity ordinance allows a one-time payment of a $10,000 bonus after each full term served. Instead, the mayor's office issued annual payments of $40,000 between 2018 and 2021. Other is concealment. The administration moved these payments into a human resources line item, typically reserved for employee sick and vacation payouts, keeping them hidden from the city council. What is most troubling is that some dismiss the OIG's finding as just an opinion. This is inaccurate and misleading. The OIG has a statutory authority to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse of public resources. Its report carries weight. And in Massachusetts, state agencies are required to seek repayment of overpayments to elected officials. The lack of transparency in this matter undermines public trust and raises serious concerns about the misuse of taxpayer funds. With a salary of $225,000, the Everett Mayor is already the highest paid in Massachusetts. Adding questionable bonuses to this amount is excessive, unnecessary and a burden on the taxpayers. There must be accountability Concealing improper payments under a separate budget line item cannot go without consequences. The public deserves transparency, corrective action, and confidence that the taxpayer money is being safeguarded. Thank you.

One second. We're trying to troubleshoot.

Next individual, Madam President, is Tony Raymond.

Tony Raymond. Good evening, City Council. All of you, Madam President. Tony Raymond, Ward 3. A group of us residents... One second, I'm sorry.

Let me try...

A group of us residents have been coming before you now in this very chamber for years. Our complaints of no parking, overdevelopment, follow the money, and bad behavior has now been overshadowed by a new complaint, criminal behavior. Carlo, no one is above the law. When you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, Let me repeat that. When you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, Carlo, you're caught, okay? Try being a man. Accept the apparent. Be accountable. Pay it back. All right? Admit that you had your CFO, Eric Demas, hide this money, basically burying it in the budget. You should resign. You live in a mansion, all right? You think you're rubbing people the wrong way? Why are you clipping $180,000? People are struggling right now to put food on their table, pay bills. They got family to support. You live in a mansion sitting on three plots of land. You're clipping $180,000. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Madam President, the next individual is Peggy Serino.

I have friends. Peggy Sereno, Everett Mass. As I watched last week's public speaking on TV, I realized that no matter what the subject matter, all the public participants were talking about how the guy in the corner office was mismanaging the city, but it always seems to be the guy in the corner office's advantage. The guy in the corner office goes after innocent people like Tony Raymond and John Popolo and that cost them tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend themselves. But it doesn't cost the guy in the corner office a penny because the people have ever paid the guy in the corner office's legal bills of hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Then the guy in the corner office takes $180,000 from the hardworking people of Everett and When the guy in the corner office is making $236,250 a year, making the guy in the corner office the highest paid mayor in one of the state's smallest cities, can you just imagine what we could do for our families with $180,000? While the guy in the corner office goes off to Aruba, Italy, and so forth with our money. What city or town, besides Everett in the USA, has a casino and their taxes have doubled in 10 years? And the guy in the corner office wouldn't redo the host agreement and get the city more money. Michelle Capone, candidate for Ward 1 counselor, has questioned the possible sale of the soccer stadium. And she was looked at like she had five heads. Don't you think Michelle Capone was on to something? Where is all the money coming from to repaid streets, dig up hot top sidewalks, and put in cement and adults and digging up and cleaning tree wells that weren't on any prior list? My street, sidewalk, and tree well got done. What kind of a tax hike is the guy in the corner office going to give us after this election? Cities don't collapse from the outside. They're taken down from the inside. Do you think the guy in the corner office is fulfilling his duty to serve the public with the highest integrity and not abusing positions of trust for personal gain? If you don't think something's not right, cross-reference donations to variants, business contracts, jobs, and promotions.

Madam President, the next person is Paula Stariti.

Let me try to do my timer.

Good evening, Paula Street, 100 Cleveland Ave. First, I wanted to start off thanking the city council for continuing the fight to get the $180,000 the mayor stole in longevity payments. The $180,000 may be a drop in the bucket to the mayor and his supporters, but to the people of Everett, it's a lot of money, especially to the 15% of Everett residents living below the poverty level and the senior citizens struggling just to get by. I'm sure you and the folks at home have heard about the Boston City Councilor who was arrested and fined for taking $7,500. The US attorneys at the time, Joshua Levy, had this to say about the councilor, elected have a duty to serve the public with the highest integrity and not to abuse positions of trust for personal gains. By allegedly orchestrating a scheme to funnel public funds into her pocket, the City Council betrayed the trust of her constituents and violated her fiduciary duty as a public servant. Our office remains committed to holding those who abuse public office under accountable in protecting precious public resources. Is it too much to ask for our mayor and elected officials not to steal and to pay their taxes and water bills on time? No offense, but where is the AG in the feds? Besides stealing the 180,000, how much more did the mayor mismanage? I hope the auditor identifies the millions of dollars our taxes have been spent to defend bad behavior and settle lawsuits requiring NDAs. Or the fact that the city's insurance was with the mayor's best friend and travel companion for years, who frequented Italy, Aruba, and Florida, and only was moved after his death to Sabatino's insurance where the Council of DiPierro works. Does anyone think seriously that there's something seriously wrong that Mayor refuses to renegotiate the casino hosting agreement when given the opportunity to put the sale?

Thank you, Paula. Time is up. Now the president and next person is Mary Fortin.

Can you repeat that again? I'm sorry.

Mary Fortin.

Good evening.

David Fortin, Ward 4. The only statement I'd like to make this evening is from a Vietnam veteran's perspective as to what's going on. I fought for this country, as did many of us in the past and still in the present. We're still in harm's way overseas. Like I said, many of us fought. A lot of us came back. Some of us didn't. For those of us that came back, we did not expect to be silenced or have our constituents silenced. And that seems to be just what's going on here in the city of Everett, a city that I once was very proud of. And I do mean that, thank you.

I agree.

Madam President, the next person we have is Bill Thompson.

Mr. Thompson. Sorry, microphone.

Bill Thompson, Sacral Plaza Ward 6. First of all, I'd like to thank some of the media people that came tonight. Because my own personal opinion, myself and a number of other of us have been bringing things over and over and over, meeting after meeting after meeting. And basically, we need exposure to what is actually happening in this town. And one thing is the transparency of all the money, millions and millions of dollars. They just settled, I guess, recently out of court for a superintendent, former superintendent, Priya Talaani. I'd like to know what that amount was and the transcripts or whatever you call it. We just seem to can't find out much. And unfortunately, the mayor is never here to answer any questions from us or the councilors. The transparency is not good. And again, they've gone after some of the public participants, expressing their opinions, okay? I don't understand why they didn't go after me. But not that I'm looking forward to it, but if it happens, it happens. I'm going to say my piece. I can't tell how much time I have, 15 seconds? 11 seconds. 11 seconds. Time for a coffee break. That's it. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for listening.

Madam President, the last speaker is Cynthia Salazar.

Good afternoon, good evening. Cynthia Salazar, Ward 4. I mean, I don't really think that there's much more for me to add. Everyone has kind of already said everything. But let's just stick to the data. A city as small as Everett should not ever have had a mayor paid higher than the Boston mayor. That alone doesn't make any sense. So yeah, so if we're just going to look at that on its own, there should have already been some digging as to why, right? Now we know that there's $180,000 that are owed to the city. Again, why? How? There are so many people there. Who else is involved? There must be, right? Why? Why is no one asking questions? We just need to do better. We need to do better. And I don't know if the people that speak Spanish. So everybody, please, is it required that it has to be in English? I can say it in English, too. 18 years, I think we've seen a lot. And I'm just hoping for better for our kids because, again, overcrowding in schools, there are so many issues that we can't focus on because of other issues. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Motion to close public participation.

Second. So the motion that has been made and seconded to close public participation. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. We have closed public participation. The clerk will now read the first and only item for the night.

Madam President, Item number one is a resolution offered by you as president that the forensic auditor from MDD present the current findings of the audit in compliance with the Office of the Inspector General's recommendation.

It's two minutes. Councilman camping I'm sure I'd move to invite attorney Petrini and our outside auditor to a picture motion has been made in second to invite attorney Petrini and our Representatives from an MDD the auditors all in favor Oppose the ayes have it. Good evening. And Please also just correct.

They did say you was president. It was not it's just a regular resolution It's not you as president. She was a regular member.

Thank you.

I

I'm sorry, your microphone.

Thank you. Good evening, Madam President and members of the honorable council here this evening in the audience. The council president asked me to give a brief overview of where we've come in the last seven months. As everyone is aware, all the counselors, there was a report, a 16-page report issued by the Office of Inspector General on February 27th of this year. after a two-year independent investigation. And I do want to emphasize as part of this that the Office of Inspector General has no axe to grind. They're an independent state agency. They deal with cities and towns across the Commonwealth. So this is an outside agency that came to this conclusion that I set forth in this particular report. And that was seven months ago, and in this 16-page report, the Office of Inspector General concluded that there were overpayments under the longevity ordinance to the mayor of $180,000. And the Inspector General further found that the mayor and the administration concealed those payments. And that $30,000 additionally was improperly paid before the ordinance was enacted. And that there was an improperly advanced unauthorized payment of $1,700. And that there were possible ethics violations that occurred as a result during this process. And as the councilors will remember in that report, On page 13 and 14, the Inspector General made seven recommendations. I just want to go over those quickly and then give you a brief chronology of how the council and what actions have been taken by the city council to date to address those. The first recommendation on page 13 was that the city council conduct an audit of all payments made to Mayor DeMaria from fiscal year 2016 to the present. That's why we're going to hear from Kevin Flaherty shortly from the forensic auditors. Number two, to recover $180,000 in longevity payments made to the mayor and any other overpayments discovered in the audit. The third recommendation was to provide, that the city council provide detailed information about Mayor DeMaria's longevity payments to the State Ethics Commission. The fourth recommendation was to eliminate longevity payments to elected officials The fifth recommendation was to require members of the council and the administration, including the CFO and budget director, to take specialized training on the fiduciary obligations. The sixth recommendation was to strengthen controls in the city's finance department to ensure that all payments are clearly documented with add change forms and the like. and clearly set forth in the municipal budget in a transparent way. And the seventh recommendation is to ensure proper segregation of duties by creating separate position of CFO and auditor. I want to tell the councilors and the public that each of those seven recommendations have been acted upon by the council in a systematic and organized fashion in the past seven months. And in that respect, I just want to give a brief chronology of certain events. The council did appropriate $150,000 for audit and legal services on March 3rd. On March 4th, the council took a vote to demand repayment from the mayor of this $180,000. The mayor has to date refused to pay the monies back and claims that they were not improperly paid. On that same evening of March 4th, the council requested that the mayor take steps to implement financial safeguards that have been recommended by the Inspector General and separate the positions of the city auditor and the CFO. My understanding of that has been done, although I believe the administration recommended that the auditor was an employee of the CFO's office, which of course would not be the intent of separating the positions. On March 4th and 24th, the council agreed that they would take training and also requested the mayor and his staff to take training. And that training is being organized or scheduled as we speak with the inspector general. On March 24th, the council enacted an ordinance to end longevity payments to all elected officials in the city. On March 25th, the council submitted requests to the mayor and staff for information to provide the independent auditor. On March 26, the council did file a complaint with the State Ethics Commission regarding the conflict of interest issues identified by the Inspector General and also the mayor's use of city funds to pay for outside council and for PR firms to represent him in defending against the Inspector General's findings. And that investigation before the State Ethics Commission is ongoing. On March 28th, the council did write to the Inspector General and requested, provided an update and requested further assistance from the Inspector General. And also sent separate letters to the Massachusetts Attorney General, the District Attorney, and the US Attorney requesting action. In mid-April, the Forensic Auditors, MDD, Kevin Flaherty was retained to conduct an independent audit. Mr. Flaherty will be speaking on that this evening. On May 5th, supplemental information was provided to the State Ethics Commission. On May 15th, further information again was provided to the Inspector General. At the end of May, the council was seeking funding to commence the legal action to seek itself to have these funds recovered. But the budget item to allow for payment of such action for legal counsel was not included in the FY26 budget at the decision of the mayor. And as many are aware, at the end of September, Mr. DeMaria filed suit against the Inspector General claiming that the Inspector General finding was incorrect. and that the Inspector General had no authority to interpret the city's ordinance. So I'm going to introduce Kevin Flaherty from MDD, who will present his findings based on information that was made available by the administration in connection with its independent audit. Some information was provided, other information was not provided, and the auditor will also identify issues where information was requested and not received, or which require further clarification. So Madame President, with your permission, I'll call Mr. Flaherty up to the podium.

Yes, I'm just waiting for a legislative aid to return so we can turn the monitor on. And if you could also check on the sound. I've been hearing from people at home that the sound is a little not consistent. No, I just want to make sure it's working.

All right, go ahead. Sound good? Great, good evening. I'm going to, my name's Kevin Flaherty. I'm going to run through You have them in front of you, approximately a dozen slides that outline our analysis and our findings. Council members, I'm going to try not to get too deep into accounting lingo. So if you feel you need to stop me and ask a question, please feel free. So just to level set, this is the timeline of our engagement. I think it generally speaks for itself, but I think it's... It level sets where we're at today. We executed our engagement letter April 16th, provided the city a request for information to commence our audit April 28th. On May 9th, we received initial information from the city. It took us a few weeks to go through that information, figure out if we had received everything or not. There was some missing information. We requested it May 21st, which we received a quick answer back on May 21st. From May 21st to August 11th, we conducted our review. Based on that, we had some preliminary findings. We wanted to provide an opportunity to the city to respond to some of those findings, to make sure there weren't any kind of adjusting entries or anything like that that we should be concerned about. So we provided that on August 11th to the city. We did not hear back on that. So on September 9th, we sent a follow-up to those inquiries. And at the end of this presentation, we'll talk about those inquiries. But on September 22nd, we did receive a response to those inquiries. And again, we'll go through those inquiries at the end of my presentation. Okay, our first scope, I hope this is on, I can't tell. First scope was related to payroll, Mr. DiMaria's payroll. We conducted an audit of the W-2s, we conducted an audit of the payroll registers to confirm we had completeness. And the important thing is the payroll registers provide a classification as to what the wages were for. They will classify it as a salary, a stipend, longevity, or other. So that becomes our source as to the purpose of the payroll, the payment to Mr. DiMaria. We also looked at within the accounting system outside of the payroll system. Within the accounting system, we looked at the expenses charged to the mayor's office. And there are some accounts called salaries, longevity and auto allowance. So what would happen in the accounting system if I made a payment for longevity, it would show on the payroll register. as longevity, which is a relatively granular detail report. And then it will be posted to the accounting system of the general ledger into the longevity account. So it could be seen at the end of the year. So what we did is, the conclusion there is we confirmed all the W-2 wages were recorded in the accounting system. They were just in various accounts and subaccounts within the accounting system. This is a summary of our findings on the payroll. What I'm identifying here are the unique, the non-salary payments to Mr. DiMaria. And the left side you can see is entitled per payroll register. Again, that's the granular level that lets us see how it's being coded. And the right side is how it's being captured in the accounting system. So if I can show you the first one on 8-25-16, there was a $7,600 payment to Mr. DeMaria, and in the payroll system was called longevity. And in the accounting system, the general ledger, it was also called longevity, consistent. The next one, same thing, October of 16, a $30,000 payment recorded in the payroll system as longevity. and recorded in the accounting system as longevity. Same one for the 2017. These highlighted ones, whether they be highlighted in green or yellow, where we identified some discrepancies or inconsistencies. This first one in January of 18, there was a $40,000 payment paid through the payroll system and recorded as longevity. However, it was originally recorded as longevity in the accounting system, but then it was moved to the bigger account called salaries and wages. The next one, $40,000 and 19. You see that that one was recorded in the payroll register as longevity, but in the accounting system, it was only recorded as salaries and wages, as opposed to longevity. Next one, January 9th at 20, $40,000. Payroll system calls it longevity. Accounting system calls it salaries. Identifying those inconsistencies there. The next two, if you look in the green, are manual checks. These are not coming through the city's payroll register. The city has a mechanism where they can make manual payments as needed. The example the city provided to us was a payment to a vendor, let's say a snowplow operator, and the check did not clear. The snowplow operator might call and say, I never got paid. The city would go through the steps to confirm that the check did not clear, and they would reissue a manual check to the snowplow operator. That's what the purpose of that manual account was as conveyed to us. $20,000 payments to Mr. DiMaria. Again, it was manually put in to the payroll register so it could be tracked. It was coded as longevity. But you'll see here, it was put into the accounting system into the employee buyback account. Again, an account that has a lot of activity in it. The next one is another manual check on 4-9-21. It's basically the same transaction. And I'll also note, if you look in the green on the right side, you'll see that account 152-5151. All the others are account 121. 121 is the mayor's account. The 152 is not the mayor's account. It's a general account. I don't know what it is, but it does not fall within the mayor's office. The next one is much smaller, $1,700, classified as longevity. It was coded as an auto allowance. I think that's a clerical error. We'll get into that. The city responded that that was a clerical error. And this last one was in the payroll register as supplemental earnings. We inquired as to what that was. And the response was that it was an accumulation of cost of living increases that had not been paid over a number of years. And it was paid all at once here in November of 23. I don't know the calculation as to how it was arrived at, but that's the explanation we were told. So in total, the unique transactions, non-salary transactions that we identified totals $260,000. Now, moving on from our payroll review, we also had a scope.

Go ahead. The total that we paid them all was $266,000. Is that what you said?

$260,964 is the total, yes. Okay, so... It's not the 180, it's 260. Okay.

Thank you.

260 represents the total. What is an appropriate payment, we haven't factored in what the appropriate longevity is or anything like that. We're just giving you the facts as to what was paid.

Thank you.

Next thing we did was what we call a disbursement analysis. What we wanted to do was review all of the disbursements out of the mayor's account, payments out of the mayor's account, so we could identify them to council members. We don't know. who all of the city's contractors are and who should be receiving payments and for what reason. But we took this step to make sure there were, A, no additional payments to Mr. DiMaria that went outside of the payroll system and went through the disbursement system. And also to provide to the council members a list of total large payments and who the vendors are. This is a summary, we have a lot of more data behind this. But this is showing you the large disbursements each year and who the disbursements were made to from the mayor's office. And I just note down to the bottom, Carlo Di Maria and Dolores Latanzi, very small amounts. Those are expense reimbursement type things. So what this does is it allowed us to confirm there were no additional direct payments to Mr. Di Maria outside of the payroll. And we just present these other payments to the city for their review and understanding. Next, we moved on to our third prong, our third scope, credit cards. With our understanding, the city has approximately eight credit cards in various employees' names where the employee should use them for business expenses. We obtained all the credit card detail and have summarized it. Here are the annual amounts charged to the credit cards by the individuals who have control of those credit cards. I'm not here to opine on the appropriateness of those charges. We do have a very detailed schedule that is not part of this report that shows an itemization of every single one of those credit card charges, so you can look. at the detail and see that it's to a Holiday Inn or to whatever it is. We have that and I believe we've presented it separately. All I have highlighted here is Mr. DiMaria's credit card has a substantial kind of out of the norm charges of $25,000 in 2023 compared to prior years.

Here is the detail to that, $25,000.

Again, I can't opine on the business use or the business purpose of it. I'm only presenting it here. Last thing we did was looked at expense reports. Again, to make sure there were no anomalies in expense reports. And we looked at Mr. DiMaria, Ms. Latanzia, and Ms. DiMaria's expense reports. They're all very small. The city provided the expense report to us. I'll just let you know that the accompanying receipts to those expense reports are only available five years back. It might be four years, four or five years back, but we do have those. This is a summary of Mr. DeMaria's expense report from 2014 through 2024. And you can see they're relatively small amounts. And again, we do have the receipts and the detail behind it if anybody wanted to look into specific charges. This is Dolores Latanza's expense report, equally very small or even smaller.

Any questions?

Sorry, Council, let's not forget to be recognized. Council Vigintonio, yes.

Why do you pick out Doris Latanzi's credit card expense report? Why hers?

Yeah, I was asked to look into that. And I think it was just, it's my understanding she has an office with or some relationship, business relationship with Mr. DeMaria. So just to make sure there was no activity funneling through that. Okay, all right, thank you.

Any questions from the counselors at this time? No?

Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you very much for the presentation. So I guess I really would like you to comment on the highlighted sections of your payroll register section and I guess my question is why would certain of these payments be made manually and why would they not be showing up in a longevity line item.

Yeah, so I'm going to go through those now. So when we reached this conclusion, we presented this to the city for an explanation and asked them a series of four or five questions to get some understanding as to why those transactions were done that way. And I'm going to go through those right now on the next slide. And maybe it's easiest, you all up here to printouts, if you want to work on that slide that was in front of you, the yellow and green highlights. And these are questions to each of those. It's a little awkward. You have to toggle back and forth. And I'm going to do the same up here. So the first question we asked, and my question is summarized here in black. The red is verbatim the response back we received from the city. So why was the $40,000 payment transferred from the longevity account 121, which is the mayor's longevity account, to the salary account 121, which is the mayor's department, right, salaries? I don't know if I want to read this out loud or if everybody wants to kind of read it to themselves for a minute.

Okay, I will.

All right, sorry. The amount budgeted in fiscal 18 in the mayor's office budget was $30,000. I'm presuming that's referencing for longevity. The amount was predicated on the number of terms completed by the mayor as of calendar year 2017. In November 2017, Mr. DiMaria was reelected, and when his longevity payment in fiscal 2018 became due, he completed four mayoral terms and was owed longevity amount of $40,000. So that doesn't address why it's recorded separately, but it tells you the amount. The longevity payment issued in January 2018 was charged against longevity initially. When accounts were being reconciled, the longevity payment was transferred to the Saraly's line item because the amount owed to the mayor was greater than budgeted. Presumably what he's referenced is greater than budgeted for longevity. The payment was subsequently charged against salaries under the same department, which allowed for the department of the mayor's office to remain balanced. I'll try to summarize that without putting words in the city's response here. Evidently, it was felt that there was no budgeted item for the $40,000. So it was recorded in salaries and wages instead.

I'm going to move on to the next one.

Councilman Campin?

Yeah, just on that point. So my question, I guess, is the ordinance that was in dispute that you get tonight is, or had been in effect, I believe, for over a year. So when the city budget was set for that fiscal year, that amount in longevity would have been budgeted. Do you have any information on why that amount was set?

So we have access to the underlying document and sitting here from memory, I can tell you there was $30,000 budgeted, I believe, in that year for the longevity, not $40,000. But again, we have the underlying documents. We're happy to share with them if you want to get into that detail. Yeah, that'd be appreciated. Yeah, you just don't have it here to go through the accounting minutiae, right? But we have the documents that will allow you to see the budgetary process, what was budgeted, and how it was transferred. Okay, thank you. This next one addresses the manual checks. Why were the two $20,000 checks issued to Mayor Demaria from the manual checkbook? Why were they labeled as longevity payments on the payroll register, but recorded to the employee buyback account instead of longevity account? And again, I just want to clarify, the longevity account we're referencing is contained within the mayor's office expenses. of the accounting system, whereas the 152 account, the buyback account is not in the mayor's office. That's an account that sits outside of the mayor's office. It's called the buyback account. So the answer, the response is the manual check amounts were for longevity and reflect two payments of 20,000 each for a total of 40,000 in longevity payments. The payroll system in place at the time did not have the capacity to adjust payroll withholdings to reflect a supplemental payment for longevity. The manual check process was used to manually calculate the correct withholding amounts of a supplemental payment. So what that is saying. is the city has a payroll, an independent payroll company. And like you all have, you have withholdings that come out of your paychecks. What this says is that that system didn't have a mechanism to deal with withholdings related to longevity. So they did it outside of the payroll system and used the manual process. The next sentence.

Councilor Pentantonio.

The manual check process was used to manually.

I'm sorry, Kevin. Sorry, he has a question.

I'm sorry.

I just want to make sure the residents understand. So the longevity check that the mayor received, they're saying that they couldn't take out the taxes? Is that what you're saying?

What they're saying is the normal payroll system The longevity payment required a different amount of withholding. And they couldn't override that within the normal payroll records, so they used the manual system.

So what about everybody else? I might get this wrong, but everybody else in the city has longevity. And it works for their longevity payments, but it didn't work for this, for the mayor's longevity payments? Am I...

Yeah, I don't know that answer, but that's what it seems to be implying, yes.

That's right. I mean, everyone's longevity in the city. You could take out your taxes and everything, but the mayors, 20 and 20, they couldn't do that with the payroll. They couldn't take out taxes.

Is that what they're telling us? They couldn't take out the right amount.

They couldn't take out the right amount.

Yeah.

Just on the mayor's longevity. There's over 1,000 employees in this city that get longevity. He's the only one that they couldn't adjust his taxes.

Councilman Marchese.

If I may, Mike, I'm sorry.

Are you not done yet? Okay, sorry, Councilman, it's Antonio.

You had a long pause.

Okay, Council Marchese.

Just quick on the payroll registers, and I'm looking back at 2016 when there was a $30,000 longevity paid out. I know it's a year later. Is that another $30,000 laid out? It seems like it. I can see the longevity. They approved the $30,000 for his four terms. up to 10, 6, 16. Yes, correct. And then 1, 12, 17 is another $30,000. Correct. What is that for? Okay, that's the same thing. So it was $60,000 paid out where it should have been $30,000 there because the end of the term wasn't over yet. So then we turned around the designated term. It was one year after that. And it became $40,000 a year. That's what it appears on here.

That's what I'm going to show.

Which should have been $2,500 and $10,000 for the total term, I believe. That's what it was. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

And I just cautioned you, remember, fiscal year versus calendar year. You have to look at that too, right? Yeah. All right. Thank you.

Any further questions before we move on to the next question? No?

Okay. I'm going to finish reading this response so it's complete.

Sure.

The manual check amounts were entered into the payroll system to ensure proper reporting to the IRS and DOR. And they were, that's correct. The manual check process did not result in any unwarranted compensation or tax benefits for the mayor. The payments were recorded clearly to reflect that they were longevity payments for the mayor. There was not an amount budgeted in the mayor's office for his longevity payments. The payments were budgeted to be paid from the employee buyback account from which the other large non-salary compensation payments were made, such as those owed under collective bargaining agreements. So this goes to the question is, why were they recorded in the employee buyback account and not in the longevity account? This is the explanation. This is a small amount, but why was there a longevity payment for $1,700 on July 2nd recorded as auto allowance on the general ledger? Response, the longevity payment of July 7th was the amount that was owed to the mayor under longevity ordinance had been revised by the Everett City Council in 2022. The $1,700 payment was erroneously coded as an auto allowance. This was a clerical error in coding. However, the amount was correct under the revised longevity ordinance. Again, it sits in the general ledger in auto allowance. They're saying it's a clerical error. It should have been a longevity payment. This next one we talked about briefly, but why did Mayor DeMaria receive 31,664 coded SUP on November 16, 2023? So remember, SUP is the code in the payroll register system. The response is the SUP term denotes compensation that was owed to the mayor and paid in the check in addition to his regular salary that was listed under regular salary. The SUP code was used to reflect the amount that was included in the check for $31,664 that was compensation owed to the mayor for prior cost of living adjustments that he was owed per ordinance but had not been paid at the time he had been allowed to collect them. Last, I believe it's the last one. Why are payments coded as stipends in the payroll register and what are they related to? With respect to the mayor's compensation, his stipend payments are payments to the mayor for months budgeted for car allowance.

Okay, so I believe that's the last question. Do we have questions from the council? Councilor Pettin, Tonya.

Just on that cola, the 31,000 on that cola, so the cola you get paid yearly. I think every city employee gets paid cola yearly. If I'm wrong and someone tell me I'm wrong, is that, I mean, they're saying they didn't pay him yearly, so they gave him one lump sum?

That's what it seems to be implying, yes.

Okay, but I thought every person's cola was once a year. And how many years of that total do we know?

We didn't get the detailed calculation of how many years it comprised of.

So you get no information why the 31664 was paid on the caller. We don't know why his caller wasn't paid yearly like every other employee in the city, probably in the state, probably in the United States, probably. Everyone's got paid caller once a year, but not him. He makes up his own caller. What was the next question?

Council, if you have specific questions to the administration, we can have the clerk, he can return and he will package those questions that we can refer to the mayor's office for any answer at the next meeting. But keep going. All right.

All right. I just want to touch base on the call. Thank you. Okay. Council Rogers.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for the information tonight. My question is, what action is this council expected to take from this information?

Well, I guess that's not a question for him, it's ours. So we're referring this information to the Inspector General's office. Actually, I'll call the attorney so he can specify what we're doing with the information. But we're also referring your questions to the administration so we can get further answers for the public. And then we have some other actions that the attorney will outline.

Okay, one more question.

I have a second question as well. I have you.

Briefly, what the council could do, if you wish, is to take a vote to have this information sent to the Inspector General and the State Ethics Commission as a supplemental information for their consideration. I would recommend that if the council would so vote.

Thank you. I have a second question as well. In May, I read a quote from Mayor DeMaria in the Boston Globe that said, it's important for residents to know that the longevity issue was already referred to the United States Attorney's General Office by the OIG and no action was taken in this matter after a full investigation at the federal level. Where is that federal report?

I think you submitted an item asking for clarification and we haven't received a response. Thank you. So we can refer that again to the administration. Thank you. Councilor Smith?

I have no questions, just a comment to make with questions for the administration once everyone finishes their questions here.

Okay.

Councilor Marchese?

Yes. Have you ever seen any kind of accounting like this in your life? I'm not an accountant, but- This may go deeper than the mayor on this call here. There's some issues going on here because this wasn't written by the mayor, obviously. It was maybe created by somebody in that office. So they're just as guilty as the person who's getting the money. The whole group should be under investigation for the monies that were paid out here. And I'm just curious, did you ever see anything like this before?

Yeah, I don't think I can answer that. I've been doing this for 35 years. I've seen a lot of stuff. This is different.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President. I just had a comment after. Okay, so Council Member D'Antonio?

Why didn't you think the city audit that we do yearly didn't catch this stuff?

That's a big question, but audits are not designed to catch this stuff. They're designed in general to make sure there's not material misstatements in the financial statements. That's not their design.

So they wouldn't have never seen this? If they were looking for it like you were looking for it, they would have never seen it?

Very unlikely, it's a very granular level detail that would not necessarily come up when you're trying to audit the materiality of financial statements as a whole. All right, thank you.

Councilman Campin.

Thank you. I have two questions, and I think obviously we're concerned as a community about some of these transactions. But my first question goes to the beginning of this issue, which is the $30,000 payment that was made to the mayor before the ordinance itself was even enacted. Did you look into that question at all? I don't know that I heard much about that.

I only looked at the payments that were made. I did not look at anything compared to the ordinance or what was allowed or anything like that, if that's your question. I've only summarized what's in the accounting records.

From a best practices standpoint, I guess is what I'm trying to ask here. Could you comment from a best practices standpoint on what you saw during this nine year history of transactions? A $30,000 payment being made before the ordinance itself was even enacted, the manual entries. Can you comment from a best practices standpoint about as a community, How should we be doing this better, right? Because that's what everyone is trying to understand.

Yeah, I think there's transparency and there's checks and balances is the only way you can control this type of things, transactions or things moving around. It's a checks and balance system that has to be put in place. Okay, thank you.

Counselor, so Counselor Smith and Alcy Jabouin have comments. Do you have any? Counselor Smith.

No, I was going to excuse the customary things so we can make our comments after.

Any further questions for Kevin before we excuse him? Okay, well, thank you so much for your time and work on this. And a motion has been made. Do we have a second to excuse our guest? Motion has been made and seconded to excuse our guest.

Madam Chair, if I may, though, I do have questions for Mr. Petrini at some point, so I don't know how you want to... So do we want to keep them here? I'll defer to the members on that, but I do have some specific questions for Mr. Petrini as well.

Okay, so we'll...

So we'll keep them here. Motion to bring Mr. Petrini before, so we can all answer the questions first, and then we can make our comments and give our questions to the administration. Sure.

So motion has been made, and do we have a second to keep Mr. Petrini, and we'll ask Mr. Petrini additional questions. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? The ayes have it. If our attorney could return to the podium, and Councilman Kempins.

Thank you. Mr. Petrini, thank you for being here for your work on this matter over the last several months. And one of the questions that I wanted to ask you, which is something that the community has been asking many of us, involves kind of where do we go from here? So we're living in a world today in Everett, imagine, where the mayor took the extraordinary step of suing the Inspector General over this issue. So that lawsuit is pending. What is our involvement in that process? So the public understands.

Thank you, Counsel. The ordinary approach in something like this would be to have an attorney representing the city's interests. maybe perhaps seek to intervene in that lawsuit, because what's happening here is the mayor, DeMaria, and his attorney are challenged in the inspector general's interpretation of that ordinance. So one option would be for the council to request that council the city council's attorney be allowed to intervene, whether or not there would be funding to have that happen, but that should be something to be considered, because what's happening is a court is being asked to interpret the city's ordinance, and so I think it would be important to have an attorney who's representing the city help the court in that process so that the council can be heard in that matter, because otherwise right now it's It's basically the inspector general and it's the mayor that are going to interpret this ordinance. Obviously the judge will interpret it, but at this point only with the input of the mayor and the inspector general. So I do think it's important to have a municipal council there to represent the interests of the city in that interpretation.

So we do know that this council requested an appropriation of funds in this fiscal year that unfortunately the administration rejected. months ago. So having that reality before us, the question is, what are the other options we have? Does the Attorney General assist the City Council? Are there other options?

There really are probably not a ton of options because right now, I mean, under the city ordinances, the city is responsible for its interpretation of its ordinance and its application. I don't know if you could bring up that issue of funding again to see if you could get funding. You could perhaps consider asking the city solicitor to intervene, whether that would be appropriate given the relationship. That's a question that would have to be considered.

All right, and then my last question on the mayor's lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment to basically have a judge interpret the ordinance. How long does that process take?

It will take, in all likelihood, two to three years.

Okay, thank you.

Councilor Smith? Excuse the customary, thanks. So before we excuse, we have other councilors that have questions. Councilor Rogers?

I thought you had questions for him. I'm sorry. Thank you, Madam President. So my concern echoes Councilor VanCampen's in I don't know how we're expected to procure funding when our system requires our mayor to approve that funding. So that is a dilemma for me. And I also wanted to ask you if you were aware of any federal investigation that was mentioned in the Boston Globe.

I am not aware. We did send a letter on behalf of the city council to those enforcement agencies. We have not heard back, which is not atypical. You know, for instance, we haven't heard back from the State Ethics Commission, but my understanding is that this is under review at the State Ethics Commission. But usually if an investigation is conducted until there's a finding, until there's an indictment, there usually is not a daily or weekly report of that. And same thing with state ethics. We have not received a letter back from state ethics saying that they are not going to pursue it, so it continues to be under review. But I'm not sure of the basis for the statement in the Boston Globe. I didn't know if that was made by the mayor and his and his team but It's simply because there's been no action taken does not mean it could still be under review. It may well be under review I know that's the case with state ethics that it is under review.

So thank you Any further questions before we excuse? I'm counselor Garcia.

I

Thank you. My questions were kind of asked and answered at this point because I know it is going to be a process. But what would your suggestion be to make it be a little quicker?

You're asking for the courts of the Commonwealth to move more quickly, and it can be a challenge. If you did have counsel at the table, you could possibly, that could be one position or one point of view that the attorney for the city could make, to ask that this be moved more quickly. But I don't see that happening unless there's funding available. So the counsel is in a quandary on this issue, unfortunately, unless and until there's funding.

Thank you.

So any further questions, Councilor Pietantonio?

So just, again, to make it clear for the residents, there is still investigations going on about this case at the Attorney General's, the Ethics Commission. They're still investigating this, right?

I have not received any formal communication back other than from State Ethics, which I do know that it is under review at State Ethics Commission. But I have not heard back from the other agencies. But simply because I have not heard back does not mean that it It's not under investigation. There simply is not that kind of communication. They act by making indictments and the like. And I'm not saying that's going to happen here, but we have not heard anything official back. We have not heard a ruling that there's going to be no investigation. So it's a fair inference, but I have not officially heard that it's under investigation. It's a little bit of a different point, if you understand.

Well, let me ask you this question. Let me ask you this way. If there was no investigation at all, would they report to you and say, listen, we investigated it. We're closing the case. We didn't find anything. Would they communicate like that with you? You're the attorney.

With State Ethics Commission, they do do that because I was the maker of those complaints on behalf of the city council. And I have not had such a ruling from state ethics. The other law enforcement agencies, they may or may not write back. I do not know the answer, but I haven't heard back from any of them, but I do know it's under review by the State Ethics Commission.

Okay, so even though we communicate with them and we tell them, you know, we tell them this, that, they wouldn't get back to you to tell you that, you know, I find these, we didn't find anything. I mean, I know they're not going to tell you we're going for an indictment, but they would tell you that we didn't find anything. Wouldn't they tell you they wouldn't communicate like that with you?

It depends on the agency. I know State Ethics Commission will do that, and I don't think that is the practice with other law enforcement agencies. It's just how they do business, so it's kind of outside of our control. But the complaints were made. We haven't heard back one way or the other for the Mass Attorney General or the US Attorney. And I have heard back from state ethics that it's under review. And that's as far as I've heard from state ethics.

Okay, and just one more question. The company did the audit. How long did they be in business for?

And that's a very good question. Kevin, why don't you come up and give a little summary of your background? We should have included a little bio. I think that would be helpful.

Motion to invite up the auditor, please. Second. The motion has been made and second to invite the auditor back. All in favor?

I should ask him.

Apologies for that. Thank you. No, we should have just kept him here.

I apologize for bringing you back up. I should have asked you this before. So how long has your company been in business?

MDD Forensic Accountants has been in business since the late 70s in its present form and name. And there was a prior company prior to that. And I've been practicing since 1988.

And you're familiar with municipalities? Yes. Audits, so you're not like a fly by an idol. We didn't pick you up on the street. You're a replica company that we hired you for the city to protect the city's interest in this whole. Well, we thought it was 180, but now, lo and behold, it's 260.

So, yeah, again, the Inspector General's report and my report have some different numbers in it, right? So you'd have to reconcile them. But that's, like I said, that's the total amount that we identified.

So you think the Inspector General, they didn't go to it? You went deeper than what they did?

I do not believe the Inspector General had the COLA adjustment for $30,000 in his report. Okay, all right.

All right, thank you.

Yep.

Motion to excuse all guests. Second.

Motion has been made and seconded to excuse all of our guests. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? The ayes have it. Our guests have been excused. Councilor Smith.

Thank you. So this was the forensic audit, which went through specific... details that the city council requested of the audit firm. What it shows me is that we need an internal controls audit as well. We have subpar controls, which are shown by the changes between the accounts, which are shown by the clerical errors, which are shown by, we have eight city credit cards, which are used for everyone in the city. As a former auditor, you don't use a credit card that is not yours. Your credit card, it could be by department. If the DPW needs a credit card, they should use a credit card. If the city council uses a credit card, they should use a credit card. So you know what department the... credit card receipts are for. We should just not have eight and have Ms. Ford do $60,000 in a year on hers or Ms. Jenkins do $130,000 a year on hers. We don't know who those are for, what department they are for. I worked with the auditor and actually went through 1,040 lines of the credit card and I coded them into expense categories. Hotel, airline, travel, software and marketing, Accenture, etc. Every single line I quoted. I can tell you that when I reviewed the expenses prior to COVID, travel related vendors, we averaged around $17,000. During COVID, 15,000. How that happened, no idea. We shouldn't have been traveling during COVID. After COVID, we averaged $44,000 a year on travel expenses for a hotel, airline, transportation, parking, third-party sites. What is that for? I don't know. But in a city of our size, I don't think we should be traveling $40,000 on average a year that we're paying for. Questions I have for the administration. On the COLA, and I asked this to the audit firm, they advised me through our attorney that it's best to ask in this meeting. When was it for? Why was it taken? How much was it per year? And this is outside of the scope, but I want the people of Everett to know, the mayor is the only person who gets COLA tied to the inflation index. Everyone else gets at the administration's discretion between 2% to 3% per year. The mayor, the highest paid person in the city, is tied to the CPI. Why is the highest paid person get more money than everyone else? The cost of living is the same for everyone. Another question I have is, And Councilor Pietrantonio asked this too, but did we switch payroll systems in 2021? Why did we do two longevity checks months apart? If you couldn't do them both at once, you could have done them the next day, the same day. Why were they two months apart or three months apart? What about everyone else's longevity? Is everyone else's longevity in the city of Everett wrong in 2021 because withholding taxes were incorrect? So I'd like that question. I think those are my only questions I had on these accounts. I also asked the audit firm, I just emailed them today, but I also asked them for the backup to the expense history because We... I would like to see for the $25,000 of Mayor DeMaria's expenses, what are some of these charges for? Not saying they're legitimate or not, but he has a credit card, which he charges $25,000 to. So I would like to know, in addition, what are the additional expenses that we are reimbursing him for? If he's using the credit card for travel, are we also reimbursing him himself for travel? So I asked the audit firm, I sent them an email about those. But those are my, I think, three questions that I do have for the administration.

Counsel, if you could just email those also.

Thank you. Yes, I'm trying to. I made notes all over the paper, so I'm trying to read them all. But I think that's it. And, you know, like I said, we need an internal controls audit because the controls, like Mr. Counsel VanCampen said, we've already talked about issuing before ordinances were made. Changing the... Accounts because there's no money. We can transfer. You don't have to change an account. You transfer money between accounts. You incorrectly encode something as auto allowance. It's longevity. There's lots of controls. Multiple people using credit cards. There's so many broken internal controls in this process that we need an internal controls audit. And guess what? If you watch the budget meeting, the mayor agreed to pay for any audit that we wanted. Wouldn't pay for a lawyer, but said he would pay for an audit. So we should do an internal controls audit, because now that we have a split between our CFO and our auditor, we should tell the auditor, here's every control that you need to go and look at as the auditor. And the mayor said he'd pay for it. So I'm going to put a motion in that the mayor funds us for now next an internal controls audit. But I yield the floor, and I'll make some motions after. Sure. Councilman Campin.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a couple of additional pieces of information on top of what Councilor Smith just mentioned. So trust in government at the end of the day is everything. And if we lose trust as a city council in our administration or the people of Everett lose trust in their city government, then the whole system breaks down. And some of what we have heard tonight shows me, particularly some of these highlighted sections that our auditor has prepared for us, is that our system is broken. I have a couple of questions for the administration that I want to tack on, and we can certainly do it by email, Mr. Mengen. Number one, how is it possible that $30,000 was paid to anyone, regardless of who it is? It doesn't have to be the mayor. How is it possible $30,000 was paid before an ordinance or any approval was in place? How is that even possible? So that's one question I have for the administration. How is it possible that a $30,000 payment was made to the mayor before an ordinance was even in effect, giving him the right to those funds? Number one, there's a word for that. It's called misappropriation. Number one, that's one piece of information I'd like to get from the administration. The other real issue I have is these longevity payments basically were a moving target, depending on the fiscal year. It was called salaries, it was called employee buyback, it was shielded. At the end of the day, the payments were concealed from public view. And one of the other questions I have for the administration is why would these things as like moving targets, employee buyback, to Councilor Pietrantonio's point, why were they split in two in one year in 2021? How is it possible in 2023- That almost $32,000 was paid out for COLA when we don't even know how that was calculated, we have no idea. So I know Councilor Smith has some motion she's gonna make, but I wanna highlight three things. The $30,000 unauthorized payment that was made, someone needs to explain that to the public. The broken up longevity payments that looked like a shell game here in these highlighted sections, someone needs to explain that to the public. And the fact that our system was broken for so long and no one realized it also has to be explained to the public. Those are my three big asks of the administration, and I'm happy to put that in writing as well.

Any further questions you would like to ask, Councillor Marchese?

Just to reiterate what Councillor VanCampen said, I mean, he got a $30,000 stipend before it was even approved. But not only that, a couple months later, he took another $30,000. So, I mean, this is unbelievable. I mean, it's $60,000. I mean, no one caught this. So, if you didn't think... We were going to see the first 30,000 that was taken before it was approved. And then he said, okay, that was approved. I'll take another 30,000. And that's outrageous. It really is. I just thought there was 30. I didn't know there was another 30 there also. But that's probably a question we could ask him. Why was he doubled up his payment three months away from each other?

Any further questions, councillors? If I may add one. The council is required to, when we're attending conferences, to stay at a hotel within the government rate, and the St. Regis at $1,000 a night. So I'm checking the rooms right now, and it's like the cheapest one is, $1,500. So why is it that we have, I mean, we gladly abide by the law, but the mayor gets to stay at the St. Regis at $1,497 a night. So I'd like to hear about that. And then also, how can we move between different accounts, or can we move between different accounts without council approval? Councilor Alcidio-Buen.

Welcome.

Councilor Alessi Gibbon.

Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to make a statement. First, I'd like to thank the auditor for this report. It was money well spent. Now, my question is to the state. The proof is as clear as daylight. Why was this task left to us, the councilors, to deal with when other cities are being dealt with accordingly? Thank you. The mayor gave himself exuberant amount of money reflecting cost of living, but the mayor declined a $10 raise requested by the department. He cut it down to $5. I guess the cost of living only applies to the mayor. God help us. Anyone that is blind to this must not be paying taxes. After finding out tonight, It was $261,000 instead of 180,000. It looks like we are in deeper trouble than originally thought. This should concern everybody in Everett, everybody. And it doesn't matter if you can vote, if you cannot. Think about the cost of living here. Think about the quality of life. And look at this administration and see if this is somebody you want to represent you. You want to represent your kids at school. You want to represent the whole city. Thank you.

Councillor Petantonio. I got to disagree with Mr. Van Campen. The system's not broken. The system was fixed. Like a fixed football game, it was fixed. It's not broken. It's not broken. I mean, listen, residents of Everett, It's $260,000. So all them hot dogs and hamburgers you ate at all the parks, you paid for them. They weren't free. You paid for them. I mean, it's right there in black and white. We pay for them hot dogs and hamburgers and giveaways and stuff. So that wasn't free. Residents, please open your eyes. It's black and white. Pietrantonio didn't make this up. Marchese didn't. Smith, Van Kippen didn't. It's all here in black and white. Voters, open your eyes up, please. Please. Thank you.

So any further, sorry, any further questions from the counselors to add to the referral to the, huh? Counselor VanCampen?

Just one last request of the administration. So the mayor has sued the inspector general, right? Which in and of itself is extraordinary. He's put the city's interest at the center of that lawsuit. Because the question is, how does one of our ordinances that we passed apply? And how do you interpret that ordinance? So because he has done that, My request would also be that the administration provide this city council with a supplemental appropriation. So we can protect the interest of the city of Everett in that lawsuit between the mayor and the inspector general. So I'd like the president to work on getting funding So we can join that suit, and that's the advice we received from our council tonight, right? The right move would be for us to intervene in that suit, but we can't because the mayor said this is not an issue for adjudication many months ago, and then decided recently somehow that it now is. So I'd like to get a supplemental appropriation from the administration so we too can now intervene and ensure that the ordinance and the interests of the people of Everett is protected.

Second. So motion.

We have a motion for...

So the motion is to work. Let's send it to me again. So motion has been made and seconded to refer the request for the president to request the additional appropriation so we can join and represent the interests of the city. So all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? The ayes have it. We have added that as well.

I have additional. Councilor Smith. Thank you. I'd also like to request a supplemental appropriation to perform an internal controls audit of our finance department.

Second. Second.

Which has been made and seconded to also refer the request to the president to request additional appropriate an additional appropriation from the mayor to Conduct an internal audit no internal controls audit counselor Counselor? Yes. Internal controls. Okay, so all in favor? Aye. Opposed?

The ayes have it. I would also like to refer this package, and we can work with the legislative aides to write a cover sheet to the OIG, State Ethics, the U.S. Attorney General for Corruption, the State Attorney General- I would like to refer it to our state senator for him to get involved. I would also like to refer it to Representative McGonigal, Representative Garcia, and Representative Ryan. They are our contacts at the state, and they should be helping us to get the state agencies involved, and enough is enough.

Second the motion.

Second.

The motion has been made.

Motion's been made and seconded to refer the results of the audit to the appropriate state agencies and our state representatives. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Council Pitantonio?

I'd like to make a motion to shut all city credit cards off. These eight credit cards, shut them all off. I don't think we can do that. We pay them. I want to make a motion to shut all eight credit cards off, CD credit cards. I mean, come on. Look at these numbers. 2023, the mayor, 25,000. The purchasing agent, 16,000. The next year, she spent 130,000. Demas, 24,000, 15,000. Monica, $63,000. What is she? She's the whatever her job is. I mean, these numbers are crazy. Crazy.

So, counsel, that's not an actionable item, but you can send, you can create a resolution and make a request that they stop using them. If you would like to add that as an agenda item at the next meeting and send that as a suggestion, but we don't have... That's fine.

Let's do that.

All right. So, do we have a second on that? Second motion has been made and seconded for council but Antonio to add a resolution to the next agenda requiring that all I mean Requesting that the credit cards that the city stops using the credit cards all in favor opposed the ayes have it Do we have any further questions comments or motions of items? Second motion has been made and seconded to adjourn all in favor opposed the ayes have it we have adjourned