Great Park auditors were completely wrong about one of their most quoted talking points.
Last January Chris Money of Hagen, Streiff, Newton & Oshiro Accountants made several provocative claims to justify a full forensic audit for the Great Park. Among the most quoted was “The city paid one consultant a $12,000 change order to alter just one word in a groundwater report.”
Wrong.
City Manager Sean Joyce states on page 146 of his deposition “That was a mistake made by HSNO in it’s preliminary report. Donna Mullally, finance manager, clarified it that night. I don’t know that HSNO, as yet, acknowledged that mistake”
Great Park CEO Sharon Landers explained the error in detail on pages 111 through 114 of her deposition, walking the auditors through multiple version of the groundwater report carefully explaining not just what HSN&O got wrong, but how they got it wrong. Spectacularly wrong. The phrase “Heritage Fields” was removed from the document as part of a much larger revision. And thus a talking point was born.
This wasn’t the only major talking point that HSN & O got wrong. They also claimed over $3o million had gone missing from the Great Park funds. While the money had been transferred out of Great Park accounts, and thus was “missing” from the Great Park in a narrow accounting sense, city staff knew exactly where the money was, in a redevelopment account.
HSN & O botching two major talking points does support Beth Krom‘s and Larry Agran‘s claim that the Great Park forensic audit is about political payback, not good governance. Of course, it’s both.
Hopefully the final report will be more even-handed. Or at least more accurate.
The auditors never said it was missing they just couldn’t account for it and staff didn’t help them when asked.