For those of you that think that paving roads and Gandara-like credit card purchases is just something that happens in Socorro, you should watch this story done by Maria Garcia from KVIA on P-cards.
Those are cards that are funded by taxpayers and issued to city council representatives and their staff members intended in lieu of petty cash.
The web story is VERY different from what was aired last night. Mostly because in the story that aired last night there was basically no discussion about what the Mayor's office spent on the cards.
I'll get to that in a minute, but before I do, let me cover a couple of other things.
First, the story mentions Rep Svarzbein as having spent the least amount of money in 2015, which is the year they compiled data for in the story. Well I should hope so, he was only in office for half the year!
Put that in the "duh" category. Had you extrapolated his spending out over a year he wouldn't have been one of the lowest, but he certainly would still have been one of the lowest. Garcia also erroneously implies that Svarzbein and Ordaz have been in office a similar about of time, which is inaccurate.
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Next, I almost died laughing when I heard City Rep Acosta, who was the second-highest spending of tax-payer dollars use the word "frugal" in her explanation of her spending.
Hilarious.
Only in the alternate reality in which Acosta lives does that statement make any sense.
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And how about that Jeremy Jordan huh? I think the real story is how much food that guy would buy on his card, at your expense. Very Jesse Gandara of him.
But Niland, who has spent the most money, gave a rather interesting response to an expenditure on the card for Jordan's personal cell phone bill. She said Jordan "accidentally" paid his cell phone bill with that card but he paid the money back.
I heard he was audited and that is why he paid it back, but that is another story. The real interesting thing is how that was "an accident". Was he walking along a street downtown, tripped over some streetcar railing and his wallet flew out of his pocket and his p-card landed in his hand and his phone dialed his phone company and entered the digits themselves?
Because that is a pretty amazing "accident".
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The Mayor and his assistant spent almost $38 grand on their cards. I don't necessarily have a problem with that because after all, he's the Mayor. He represented the entire town, not just a district.
But I have a MAJOR problem with his assistant Taylor Moreno spent close to $24 grand herself. I get that the mayor needs to travel a lot, but what in the blue hell is Moreno spending all that money on as a staffer?