This opinion was contributed by Hollister resident, Louk Markham. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent BenitoLink or other affiliated contributors. Lea este artículo en español aqui.

On October 7 my wife and I sent an email to our city officials. We inquired as to just how and when the city would be in the position to have only $178 in our general fund checking account. We also asked when the last budget audit was completed. We addressed our questions and concerns to mayor Stevens, manager Cortez  and council member Morales.

Morales promptly replied that same day stating the last audited budget was completed in 2022 and that the 2023 audit had begun. Minimal staff and staff turnover were the reasons.

Cortez responded the next day informing us that finance director O’Connell was the responsible employee for seeing that financial audits were completed. She also stated that two previous city managers could not produce these reports to the Council. She informed us that when the Council that hired her just months ago, they made it “1,000% clear” on the need to get this audit completed. A bit of an unimpressive overstatement. And she didn’t get my name right despite the inclusion of my first and last names clearly in our email.

Director O’Connell responded the same day with a brief history of these years long, ongoing budget audit issues. On October 2, special City Council meeting, The City retained a public accounting firm to complete the outstanding financial audits and that they should be all completed by 2028!  2028!! She included numerous attachments and e-links for background information. We were unable to find the 2022 audit. It also appears to us that the adopted budget for this next fiscal year was a copy and paste job with no adjustments made despite knowing that there would be a shortfall and that somewhere between two and three dozen city employees would be laid off. She didn’t get my name right either.


In addition I spoke with City Treasurer Machado in person and was told that the required reports from his office had been submitted on time. Beyond that he was not responsible for taking any action beyond submitting the required budget reports.

Who should have been responsible?

Before our retirement my wife had worked in credit and collections in private industry earlier in her career. I was in the public sector as a manager for decades. We were very clear from our employers that if our financial reports were not submitted accurately and on time we would be out of a job. VERY CLEAR.

Lack of employees and/or employee turnover is not an acceptable excuse for these apparently systemic failures within our city.

No job is complete until the paperwork is done.

With the recent layoffs of city employees including police and support staff, our city is being placed at great risk.

It is odd that the hastily announced Friday Town Hall was just as hastily canceled due to safety concerns, yet here we are, three days later in the same space. Were they genuine safety concerns or just a convenient way to not hear the public opinions of voters in Hollister?

Retired Hollister Police Chief David Westrick stated that these financial problems go back ten years.

What we should not tolerate is the repeated finger pointing at somebody else being responsible and repeated failures to hold employees and officials accountable for their performance or lack thereof.

We have yet to hear from back from mayor Stevens. Her voice remains silent on these very critical financial issues.

This whole budget issue stinks worse than a mismanaged septic pond in the summer.

Thank you for your attention to the details. Details matter.

Note to Hollister voters: Make your voices heard this election! It is important to change course and move forward with financial integrity and clarity soon before Hollister becomes the next bankrupt city in California. 

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