The Morning Report
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Los Angeles Controller Laura Chick will testify tomorrow before the San Diego City Council’s Rules Committee on her role as an independent, elected auditor.
The struggle over an independent auditor has been one of the most consistent problems to emerge out of the city of San Diego’s switch to a strong-mayor form of government last year.
My deft and alert colleague Evan McLaughlin wrote about Chick’s watchdog efforts in L.A. late last year in this story about concerns over the auditor’s lack of independence.
Auditor John Torell, brought in to reform a bookkeeping process that left the city under sanctions from the Securities and Exchange Commission, resigned earlier this year over concerns about his lack of independence from Mayor Jerry Sanders. Torell’s office was brought under the mayor in the new government, and he said the new administration was more concerned with spin that it was with accuracy. (Read our story about it here.)