LAST UPDATE: 1/31/2003 10:23:01 PM

A News 4 WOAI TroubleShooters investigation shows city officials shopping, sightseeing, and

going to movies while supposedly conducting city business…and YOU PAID 4 IT!

The 5-day National League of Cities Convention took place in Salt Lake City, Utah this last

December.

It's an educational and informative conference held in a different city every year. The conferences

are chocked full of seminars, panels, and workshops to help city officials from across the country

serve their communities better.

You paid for seven City of San Antonio representatives to attend the conference.

The TroubleShooters also made the trip with four undercover cameras. We wanted to see just

how well your tax dollars were being spent.

This trip to Salt Lake City comes right after city officials were forced to make steep budget cuts

because of a $42 Million Dollar budget shortfall. Ironically, the City's cost of travel for trips like this

one was among many areas of spending city officials promised to reduce.

The first to arrive in Salt Lake was the now former City Councilman, David Garcia. On the

opening day of the convention, a Tuesday, he didn't leave his hotel until lunchtime. Our cameras

show him finally leaving the hotel at 12:30pm. Garcia passed up the morning seminars, including

one called "Four Traits of A Successful Leader."

Garcia did spend three hours that afternoon on a convention tour of Salt Lake City's

transportation system.

The next morning Garcia emerged at 8:30am and took another convention tour of local

community centers for three hours.

But by noon, that Wednesday, Garcia was done with the conference for the day.

Garcia met up with the city council secretary, Gail McDaniel as she was leaving a workshop. Our

cameras caught the two of them headed toward the mall. By then, it was 1:00pm. The afternoon

workshops were in full swing back at the convention center but instead of learning "The Twelve

Keys of Public Leadership" or ways to "Protect and Develop Green Space," Garcia and McDaniel

decided they'd rather check out a movie.

At 2:00pm Wednesday afternoon the two caught the matinee of "Die Another Day," the new

James Bond flick. The TroubleShooters were there, inside the theatre with them, to catch it all on

tape.

After the movie, instead of going back to the convention center, Garcia and McDaniel went right

back to shopping. The two missed a daylong seminar called "Ethical Leadership and Public

Trust."

We wanted to speak with David Garcia but since he resigned from council, after pleading guilty to

a criminal charge involving campaign fraud, he hasn't returned our calls.

But we did catch up with Gail McDaniel, the City Council secretary.

"My job is to support council whether they are here or away," McDaniel told the TroubleShooters

at City Hall.

McDaniel says she didn't go to more workshops that Wednesday afternoon because "none were

interesting" to her and walking around town was "more constructive."

"Well more constructive, actually, was walking around the town and looking at some of the

redevelopment and economic interests they had done down there. That's what I did," claimed

McDaniel.

"Like the mall?" we asked.

"Yes, in the mall. Actually if you'll look at downtown revitalization, retail stores are very important,"

McDaniel replied.

As for the movie, McDaniel says she considers that her "personal time" since she is available for

council members whenever they need her.

McDaniel and Garcia were not the only ones who found more interesting things to do…

On that Friday, we followed Assistant City Manager, Chris Brady as he left the hotel for a late

breakfast.

Afterwards, at 10:00am Brady arrived at the convention center. He briefly listened to a guest

speaker for about 20 minutes. After taking a couple of calls on his cell phone, Brady decided he'd

had enough.

That morning, at 11:15am, Brady headed for the Museum of Mormon History and checked out the

exhibits. He left after nearly 2 hours in the museum, with gift bag in hand.

At 1:00pm that afternoon Brady stopped for Sushi. Afternoon workshops were getting started

back at the convention center, but Brady went back to his hotel instead.

Brady did not return our calls, so we caught up with him at City Council to ask about his trip to

Salt Lake City. We brought the conference schedule and asked the Assistant City Manager to

show us the seminars he attended.

"There was discussions about airports that were going on," Brady said as he looked over the

conference schedule we provided. "Which one?" we asked. "Right here," he responded, pointing

to the "Airport and Aviation Noise" breakfast seminar. Brady oversees the city's Aviation

Department.

"Where did they have the breakfast meeting?" we asked Brady. "Did they do that at the

convention center?"

"Uh huh. I've gone to that one," Brady replied, indicating he'd been to the convention center that

morning.

But as our undercover video shows, Brady was not at that breakfast seminar. He was at a

restaurant, two blocks from the convention center, having breakfast alone. And the schedule

shows that particular breakfast seminar took place at the downtown Marriott.

We also asked him what he did that afternoon.

"I spent a lot of time, I know, late that afternoon going through the exhibit hall looking at the

different sessions there. We actually had a booth there the City of San Antonio sponsored. I

stayed at that booth for quite a while," Brady claimed.

But Brady never went anywhere near the expo center that day. We informed the Assistant City

Manager that we had followed him all day and we know he never went there.

"You're asking me this, you have the benefit of the doubt. I know I was at the expo center for a

period of time," Brady said.

But as our undercover videotape shows, Brady was really at the museum.

We showed him the videotape to refresh his memory and then asked why it was necessary to go

to the museum while there were still workshops going on.

"Well, one, it was after the general session," he said. "At that point I guess my feeling was I didn't

feel like there was any session I was interested in at that point."

The Assistant City Manager was not interested in sessions on "Affordable Housing,"

"Infrastructure Financing," or "Disaster Preparedness."

Brady insists he did spend time that afternoon on his cell phone talking with City staff back in San

Antonio. And we did see him on his cell phone quite a bit.

City councilman Carrol Schubert was also there to attend the conference. He told us about one

workshop he attended that was packed with useful information.

"I went to one workshop talking about homeland security, 'are you ready and is your city ready'

and just kind of listened to what other cities have done," claimed Schubert.

Schubert is referring to a seminar called "Homeland Defense: A Cost Effective Approach to

Securing Your Community," which lasted from 11:00am until noon on Thursday.

But our videotape shows Schubert didn't even arrive at the convention center until 11:45am that

day. He didn't leave his hotel until 11:30am. When he did get there, we watched Schubert register

for the conference and then grab lunch. We told the Councilman we had a camera in the

homeland security seminar and know he wasn't there. He later claimed he was only briefly at the

seminar.

"I was there for a short time," Schubert claimed. "I remember going in there but if you got a

camera on me 24 hours a day, I know I can't say one way or another. I don't have a minute-by-minute register of what I did," Schubert told us.

That same afternoon Councilman Schubert did speak for an hour and a half on a panel called

"Partnerships In Progress: Establishing Long-Term Partnerships With the Military In Your

Community."

What else did Councilman Schubert do during his two days at the convention?

Nothing.

Schubert told us he was too sick to even go to the convention center on Friday. We saw that he

didn't emerge from his hotel room until late that afternoon. But he was able to rise from his

sickbed at about 3:30pm. Our undercover video shows him leaving the hotel for some

sightseeing.

"Why not use that time to go to a workshop?" we asked the Councilman.

"Well, ya know, I just didn't. I mean I think you make your own decisions on that and to me, to

look at the city/county building… here we're doing some work on the courthouse and city hall. I

think it's important to see what other cities have," he replied.

But Schubert saw more than just the historic courthouse in Salt Lake City. He also toured the

Mormon Temple Square, home of the famous Mormon Tabernacle and Mormon Tabernacle

Choir.

On the final day of the convention, a Saturday, everyone had left except the now former

Councilman Garcia. But our video shows that Garcia passed up the seminars to do more

shopping. He even made a stop in a lingerie shop.

Instead of learning Victoria's Secret, he could have been learning the secrets of saving municipal

retirement plans or how cities can deal with the slowing economy.

You might guess how Garcia finished the last afternoon of the conference… with another

matinee. And he wasn't alone this time, either. The TroubleShooters were there, too.

The total cost for the trip to Salt Lake City adds up to nearly $15,000. That’s enough to fix about

125 potholes in our neighborhood streets.

Tomorrow night find out why you paid for a $524 dinner at one of the best restaurants in Utah.

We'll also have reaction from Mayor Ed Garza, who made the trip but paid for most of it with his

campaign funds.