Chris Brady caught on camera

Cameras don’t lie. But Chris Brady does. At least that’s what one camera showed.

In this case it was an undercover camera -- wielded by an investigative news team that followed Brady around during a city-paid trip back when he was assistant city manager in San Antonio .

Brady was hired from San Antonio late last year with a compensation package that includes $184,000 in salary, an expense account, a $20,000 moving bonus, six weeks of vacation and a $600 monthly car allowance. He was the product of a nationwide search that attracted 46 resumes from 22 states and internal applications from Mesa city staffers.

Attached is the entire pdf. file from a San Antonio News 4 WOAI TroubleShooters investigation showing city officials shopping, sightseeing, and going to movies while supposedly conducting city business at a 5-day National League of Cities Convention in Salt Lake City . Below is a paste of the lead-in and the segment that focuses on Brady’s antics, including the lies he told when the news team asked him what he was doing at the convention.

The news team’s coverage of Brady is a disturbing revelation about a public official who is supposed to merit the public’s trust. And it surfaces just days after Brady was caught lying to the editor of the Mesa Independent, as documented in the second attachment.

He lied to the press in San Antonio . He lied to the press in Mesa . When it comes to lying to the press he is well on the way to achieving repeat-offender status.

During the search for a new city manager City Councilman Mike Whalen said, "We need someone who is creative, gutsy and community-minded." Lying to the press might be creative and gutsy, but it can hardly be called community-minded. Anyone who lies to the press is certainly not likely to have any qualms about lying to the community at large.

When the council chose Brady from among five finalists, Councilman Rex Griswold told Tribune reporter Brian Powell, "Being a good communicator is going to be vital." Rex was right, but hiring a truth-teller might have been a better choice.

Brady’s credentials as a truth teller have already been challenged by the VBO and other groups for his orchestration of the continuing cover up stemming from inquiries into the city’s bond accounting and disclosure practices, his months-long avoidance of straightforward answers to questions vital to the public’s ability to make informed decisions about the massive utility bond debt questions on the November ballot, and the extensive employment of city resources in the failed effort to sway voters into approving a property tax at last May’s election.

Aside from arrogantly shunning open and honest public dialogue, Brady’s short tenure is already otherwise shaping up as the biggest management disaster in Mesa history. Brady’s mishandling of the police email scandal, the neighborhood services fiasco, and the parks and recreation debacle have already shown the public what kind of stuff this city manager is made of. And what they have seen is not good.

One hundred and fifty employees have already fled the city under Brady’s short regime, a drain that vice-mayor Claudia Walters accurately characterized as a loss of institutional memory. There is a price to be paid for that loss.

It is generally assumed a new broom sweeps clean. Not in this case. In this case Mesa ’s already tarnished reputation is now dirtier than it’s ever been. And a city manager who lies to the press isn’t going to help it get better.

Here is the Chris Brady segment of the News 4 TroubleShooters investigation:

Fred Phillis

Click here to read the entire article

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

San Antonio Express-News, January 31, 2003

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. ..

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.