Welp, I told you guys to prepare for the 1970s experience of watching your transit dreams bite it. Guess here we are.
Internal audit finds SANDAG leadership approved improper payments
Full report
I'm trying to wrap my head around all of this but the audit basically alleges that Ikhrata has been running SANDAG as his own personal fiefdom, without any form of oversight, and has used that power abusively. In detail he's being accused of:
-refusing to acknowledge there are any limits to his ability to hire, fire, promote, transfer, or give monetary bonuses to SANDAG employees
-lying to the SANDAG board that they are not allowed any form of oversight, and claiming that he can essentially make his own rules as far as the above goes
-paying several retiring SANDAG employees large severance payments without proper justification (there's a strong implication this was done to keep them from badmouthing him to the press/the SANDAG board)
-giving out monetary bonuses and pay raises to SANDAG employees with little documentation, and sometimes without clear justification
-promoting employees to executive level positions without competition, possibly violating state discrimination laws
-changing employees from full time into at-will employment (so they could be fired without standard process)
-nearly doubling SANDAG's overall salary costs for no real benefit, and hiding this from the SANDAG Board
-harassing the auditor while she was trying to make this report
Ikhrata has responded that this is the way things have always been run at SANDAG, that the Board's oversight role consists of their ability to fire him, and that this auditor is biased against him. Probably not the best move, considering this audit was commissioned by the state after the failures of the last SANDAG administration...