Pour some more!

Yet more on the developing story of Irma Anderson's financial foibles, this time from Will Harper's "Bottom Feeder" column in the East Bay Express.

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The No-Spin Zone?

Why did Richmond Mayor Irma Anderson alert local media earlier this week that she received approximately $1,800 in improper payments from the city a few years ago? Insiders speculate that Anderson, who is the midst of a tough re-election campaign, was trying to minimize any damage inflicted by her political opponents on the issue. After all, how often do politicians snitch on themselves to reporters unless they're launching a pre-emptive strike?

On Saturday evening Anderson's chief of staff, Jay Leonhardy, sent out a press release bragging that the mayor had uncovered an "accounting error" that resulted in her receiving monthly car-allowance payments between July 2002 and February 2003. Anderson wasn't supposed to get a car allowance because she wasn't driving her own car at the time, but rather a city-owned Chevy Impala. The mayor claimed she didn't notice the error back then because she got a raise around the same time and her city checks are automatically deposited into her bank account. She has since repaid the amount.

While revealing, the press release still begged the question: Why was Anderson combing through three-year-old expense reports? Some sources suspect the mayor was trying to head off a story in the West County Times, which made calls to City Hall about the issue in recent weeks. Anderson tells Feeder she hadn't received any press calls, but she didn't deny she wanted to pre-empt an attack by her old foe, Richmond political fixer Darrell Reese, a consultant to the powerful firefighters' union. (Reese didn't return a call from Feeder.)

Anderson says that "a while back" — she wouldn't get more specific — a Reese associate had raised questions about her city car, so she figured she'd better see what she was dealing with. Within the last month, Anderson asked for records from the finance department, which had coincidentally been conducting a payroll audit. Only then, she says, did she discover that the city had been paying her improperly. Anderson notes that such accounting errors plagued Richmond before its financial meltdown two years ago. The audit has found other city employees who improperly received payments, finance director James Goins says.

Anderson, who is running for re-election against Councilwoman Gayle McLaughlin and mortgage broker Gary Bell, says she notified the press to make it clear to taxpayers she wasn't trying to cheat them. "I just felt that the better thing was to just state it ... so no one else does a spin on me," she reasons.

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No spin necessary here at the Tazer, Mayor Anderson. You seem to be doing plenty on your own.