Waste, Fraud, & Mismanagement

More than three years after the city of San Diego spent $30 million for a project designed to collect traffic data, “the project is failing to live up to its hype and members of the public trying to work with the data are encountering problems that throw the project’s early promotional claims into question,” Voice of San Diego reported. “San Diego’s smart streetlights were supposed to collect and produce anonymized data that planning professionals and app-makers could then use to…

State Wasted $500,000 on Unused Custom-Built Boat, Auditor Finds. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife “wasted more than a half million dollars of state and federal funds when it purchased a custom-built boat in June 2017 that it cannot use for research surveys as it intended,” the state auditor wrote in a new report on the misuse of tax dollars by various state agencies. “Weaknesses in Fish and Wildlife’s procurement process enabled this wasteful purchase,” the auditor stated. “In…

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is mismanaging the “Pet Lover’s” specialized license plate program so badly that the program is at risk of failure, the state auditor reported March 26. Sales of the license plates generate funds for subsidizing free or low-cost animal sterilization services through grants to eligible entities. From 2013 to 2017, the Veterinary Medical Board was responsible for managing the program, but the Legislature and governor transferred oversight responsibility to the CDFA beginning January…

Nine Years After Approval, Only 1 Percent of San Francisco’s Housing Units Built. Approximately nine years after San Francisco officials approved the construction of 25,700 housing units to address the city’s housing shortage, only 350 homes – 1.3 percent of the total – have been built, the San Francisco Chronicle reported January 16. “San Francisco lawmakers approved three historic, neighborhood-transforming redevelopment proposals during the 12 months leading up to summer 2011 …,” the Chronicle reported. “Even as housing prices have skyrocketed and developers…