Dando, AYA President Dan Smyth, AYA Treasurer Dan Kennedy and AYA board member Gary Rummelhoff provided copies of the AYA's two grant contracts with the city of San Jose: one for a $50,000 grant, dated Oct. 3, 2002, and another for a $100,000 grant, dated April 28, 2003.

No one in the group could explain why those contracts were not provided when the Resident filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the city and the AYA on June 8.

Dando suggested that because the city receives so many public records requests every day, it's easy for staff to lose track.

However, two parties could have provided the documents, and the second party—the AYA—hadn't received a single records request until this one.

Also confusing is whether the city received two reports that the AYA—according to the terms of its grant contracts—was supposed to file with the city on May 31, 2003, and May 31, 2004, detailing how the nonprofit organization had spent the grant money.

A contract for the $150,000 Healthy Neighborhoods Venture Fund reimbursement grant awarded to the AYA in July 2003 has yet to be executed, as does a repayment agreement specifying that the AYA pay $100,000 back to the city's contingency reserve fund.

According to the documents, the AYA spent $10,000 to have Wysocki and Associates write the initial grant application for the HNVF grant, which asked for $955,172.

The answer to the question of why these contracts have yet to be signed depends on when you ask. Before the Resident's story ran on July 15, city staff said the HNVF contract would be executed "within a week or two" and that the repayment agreement would be drawn up to "close the loop."

Now, however, the same city staff says the HNVF contract will wait until the sports complex environmental impact report is approved, as will the repayment agreement.

Paper trail

According to a report handed out on Aug. 25 to the city council rules committee—which was considering an audit of the city's grants and loans with the AYA—the AYA did provide receipts and canceled checks to the city on Aug. 10, nearly a month after the Resident's story ran.

The AYA also brought copies of seven checks written by the AYA in 2002, and seven written in 2003, along with a list of the amounts of each check and what the money paid for to the Aug. 16 meeting.

Copies of a contract signed by the AYA and environmental consulting firm RBF in 2003 detailed how the initial environmental impact report would be conducted.

Finally, the AYA also handed out copies of its latest annual IRS report, the Form 990 for 2003, and an annual information return for the state of California, Form 199.

According to those forms, the AYA currently has $38,560 in its bank account.

Upon examination, a $3,000 discrepancy between the list of checks and the actual amount spent on well testing and site studies in 2003—a total of $6,740—was cleared up when the AYA later produced two canceled checks not included in the batch handed out at the Aug. 16 meeting.

One check was for $2,500 to Jim's Back Hoe, and another was for $500 to Morton Septic, according to AYA treasurer Dan Kennedy.

Another minor mystery involving $6,313 in county permit fees was solved when Kennedy said the AYA had paid $334 of that total, and the law firm of AYA board member Brad Bosomworth paid the balance. That donation was not included on the AYA's Form 990 for 2002.

"According to the tax preparer, it could have been handled either way," said AYA president Dan Smyth. "It could have been reflected as a contribution to AYA and a dollar-for-dollar expense, but since it did not flow through AYA, it might have created confusion, and shouldn't really matter. Had Brad's firm wrote the check to AYA and then AYA wrote the check to the county, it would have been handled as a contribution and expense on the 990."

Fuzzy math

During the Aug. 16 meeting Dando went over the District 10 parks budget in an apparent attempt to figure out how the Almaden Resident calculated that $2.6 million in city money had been invested in the McKean Road sports complex project. Dando has disputed this number since it was first published.

But, as the Resident explained at the meeting, the math has nothing to do with the parks budget. The Resident had heard from three independent sources who each said that Dando told them that she had set aside $2 million in District 10 funds for the AYA.

While at the Aug. 16 meeting Dando agreed that the Resident had asked her about the $2 million for the "sports complex" during a July 9 interview and that she hadn't contradicted the number at that time. She said she hadn't heard the Resident say "AYA" when asking about the $2 million.

The remainder of city money allocated to the sports complex so far is:

* $150,000 in cash to the AYA

* $294,000 for an expanded EIR

* $150,000 HNVF reimbursement grant.

After much discussion, Dando also agreed that the HNVF reimbursement grant had been awarded to the AYA and that no other group can use that money unless the sports complex project is canceled or the grant is allowed to expire next June. The total remains $594,000.

The vice mayor also announced that day that she has found an additional $80,000 to $85,000—secured, she said, by being frugal with her office budget—to drop into the sports complex bucket.

So the total amount of city money invested in the AYA sports complex project has now risen to at least $674,000.