Patterson hasn’t published published city’s meeting records

Eight months after being told in an audit it was violating state law, the city of Patterson has yet to publish the minutes of its public meetings in the official journal, The Daily Review.

The audit, released in January and prepared by Kolder, Champagne, Slaven & Co., said the city had not made written minutes for its public meetings available to the public though such action is required by state law.

City officials later said the city clerk was working to develop a process to publish the minutes and that they would be published.

The audit dealt with fiscal year 2012 that ended June 30, 2012, The Daily Review reports.

Billing records of The Daily Review show no minutes have been published since January 2011, the month Mayor Rodney Grogan was inaugurated.

In an interview with the newspaper, Grogan shook his head as he read the pages of the findings.

“This is the first time I am aware of this,” Grogan said, referring to the failure to have the minutes published. “I didn’t know this was in here,” Grogan said of the city’s response. He said he will have the city in compliance soon.

“If the minutes have been transcribed then they will be presented to be published,” Grogan said. “If they are not transcribed yet, then they will be transcribed.”

Grogan, who is in his third year as mayor, said he has followed the “protocol of his predecessors” in how things are done administratively and as he sees weaknesses or problems he attempts to make corrections.

“There are practices that have to be corrected, but we don’t know these weaknesses until they are identified,” Grogan said.

The mayor said the auditor consults with City Clerk Pam Washington and other staff members when compiling the audit and not with him. In his four years as a councilman and now in his third year as a mayor, he had not seen a hard copy of an audit, he said.

“I have been made aware of the problem,” Washington said. “I will take corrective measures.”

The city charter says a summary of the audit must be published in Patterson’s official journal within 20 days of its presentation to the city Council.

The summary has not been published.