John Lyda has ignored the growing crisis at Hoover City Hall for years. Will he challenge Frank Brocato’s failures this week?

When the results of Hoover’s secret and costly forensic audit were released late last month, a statement from the mayor’s office sold the results as a win for the city and much-needed vindication supporting Mayor Frank Brocato’s repeated claims of his unfailing leadership.

The report reveals a concerning pattern: city senior staff, hand-picked by the mayor and answering to him, were aware of the city’s financial and payroll offices’ understaffing for years and raised the issues to him only to have him ignore them. The mayor’s failure to address them led to years of IRS debt, problematic reporting to the public and city council, questionable record keeping, and severe training problems, and yet the mayor’s primary concern seemed to be the potential to tout an award-winning audit rather than have an award-worthy administration.

While it’s easy to understand from a PR perspective the mayor and his staff’s mission to gaslight the city instead of acknowledging the recurring and consistent findings. No one wants to run for reelection on a platform that says, “Things have gone to hell in a handbasket but elect me again anyway.” The question we all need to ask is City Council President John Lyda helping hide the truth?

This week, the mayor is expected to request that the city council approve his budget. A review of previous requests shows that knowing the problems and the need for additional staff and training, the mayor did not ask for the necessary budget increases to fund the department adequately. Will he this year, and if he doesn’t, will Lyda do his job and speak up and reject the proposal until the needs and financial health of the city are prioritized? Will other councilors step up (again) if Lyda doesn’t?

Will Lyda ask the mayor this week about his previous failures to request funding that would have stopped the bleeding in these critical offices years ago? Will he ask what else the mayor has hid from the council and the public? 

Hoover has a Mayor-Council form of Government. The purpose of this is to make sure residents have the representation that they deserve. Having both bodies is supposed to create checks and balances and improve accountability. Week after week in the last several years, while other city council members have challenged the mayor, city attorney, and city staff, Lyda has smiled and nodded while ignoring the problems outright. While other councilors have pressed for additional information publicly, Lyda treats the public meetings as perfunctory. If he’s asking tough questions or challenging the mayor’s clear leadership deficits, he’s not doing so on the record.

The report issued by Kroll and Lyda, asserting “financial disarray,” begs the question of whether the checks and balances that residents expect when electing the council and mayor have fallen apart, and more importantly, how they can be restored.  

Residents have many reasons to question city leadership and their financial dealings and deficits of the last five or six years. Lately, budget amendments have become commonplace, with them being passed nearly every meeting —notable ones include CON expenses and legal fees (which, according to the city ordinance that the council passed and the mayor signed, should not have been paid for by the city, to begin with), utilities from fast-tracked favored development being higher than anticipated, and additional audit costs. Still, there is no indication of how much the forensic audit will cost or how it will be paid for.

In sworn testimony, Lyda noted that the economic development (no, wait, strike that lawyers got him to walk that back), the healthcare project causing most of these increases was a “personal priority” for him.

With Hoover’s debt ballooning by more than $90M, the forensic audit found that the City overstated its fund balance by over $36M, raising serious concerns that the city may be violating its rolling reserve policy. Not that there’s any way the public would know that and based on what we’ve seen and heard in the last six months. One thing is certain: if the status quo continues the way it has under Brocato and Lyda, it’ll be years before a quiet mea culpa is made to say things were array today and then that will be buried in meeting minutes that are so vaguely written history will never know. 

The Kroll forensic audit raised multiple concerns about the city’s financial practices and the integrity of the financial data. Unfortunately, as the report states, Kroll had a limited scope of review and could not review many key files. However, it did develop a road map for intrepid reporters, elected officials who have been kept in the dark and yes, even law enforcement to follow to attempt to shine light on the holes. 

Earlier this year, Lyda provided AL.Com a comment that read in part, “We have a mayor and majority council with executive business level experience who are laser focused on meeting the needs and expectations of our residents in maintaining a top tier education system, delivering world class public safety, and creating a quality of life experience that is second to none in the United States.” Where is Lyda’s laser focus on these important issues that have cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars? 

Mayor Brocato and City Council President Lyda have been in charge of the City and its financial operations for years.  So before they present another budget or amend the present budget to spend more money, the citizens deserve a true investigation and for Brocato and Lyda to answer the tough questions at this Thursday’s upcoming budget presentation and next week’s council meeting.