2 Allentown City Council members asking for detailed data on mayor’s journey bills, as they withdraw names from council decision | Allentown Space

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Two Allentown City Council members are requesting Mayor Matt Tuerk’s administration launch detailed data of journey by Tuerk and metropolis workers.

Council Vice President Cynthia Mota and Councilwoman Candida Affa made the request in a memo despatched to Mayor Tuerk, in addition to to town’s Managing Director, City Controller, Finance Department, and HR Department.

Mota and Affa are asking for a complete journey report, an expense breakdown for every journey, how every journey was paid for, and who joined the mayor on every journey.

They are additionally requesting present and previous insurance policies and procedures relating to official journey, in addition to finances allocations for mayoral journey.

The councilmembers are asking the administration to supply context on the way it determines whether or not journey qualifies as an official governmental function and the requirements used to judge whether or not bills are cheap and crucial.

In the memo dated May 8, Mota and Affa requested the administration to supply the knowledge to council inside 14 days.

The request comes after a proposed metropolis council decision requiring an audit and overview of the mayor’s touring bills and a overview by an impartial auditor was referred again to council’s human sources committee. The proposed decision was met with resistance by two councilmembers and the administration.

The proposed decision was sponsored by Councilmembers Candida Affa, Cynthia Mota, Ce-Ce Gerlach and Napoli.

In the memo, Mota and Affa stated they’re formally eradicating their names from the decision and requesting that it not be thought of by the committee and council.

Mota and Affa stated within the memo the decision was meant to make sure transparency and accountability relating to the spending of taxpayer funds.

The councilmembers stated they consider the administration ought to merely present documentation on bills, reasonably than proceed the procedural debate surrounding the decision itself.

In the memo, Mota and Affa stated the decision’s referral to committee created further confusion and delayed entry to primary public info.

At Allentown City Council’s May 6 assembly, Mota stated that whereas some info could exist already, it’s typically offered in items or with out full context.

Mota stated on the assembly City Council has a duty to supply oversight.

“That responsibility requires us to review how taxpayers dollars are spent,” she stated. “This is not about accusations; rather, it is about accountability. Transparency is not optional; it is fundamental.”

69 News reached out to the mayor’s office for comment on the memo. In response, Frank Kane, the City of Allentown’s managing director, said that part of the mayor’s job involves advocacy and outreach for funding. Kane noted that Mayor Tuerk’s travel has been minimal, already budgeted, and has helped bring in a couple million dollars for the city. He added that this type of questioning from council is routine.

At the May 6 meeting, Kane made a statement on what he says is the economic importance of the mayor’s trips.

Kane said the city benefits from having a proactive mayor who is quite possibly the city’s biggest fan.

“It’s important for someone in the organization to create and maintain and nurture relationships with potential funding partners in the federal and state government and in the nonprofit sector,” Kane stated.

“It’s a foundational component of American democracy that citizens can hold their government accountable as their traditional press morphs into the less traditional blogosphere.”

“It’s important that we listen to those voices, too, if some segment of the public has concerns about things relating to the travel of the mayor and the staff in that office,” Kane stated.

He defined, nevertheless, that every one journey bills are already audited by town’s auditor.

“I don’t know why you would want to pay an independent auditor somewhere between $40,000 to $100,000 to do a forensic audit to, to audit what we already audit,” Kane stated.

“You’d be paying the same amount that we paid in travel expenses in the last four years to do the audit.”