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July 17, 2025
Volume 60 l Number 116
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WEEKEND EDITION
TODAY
Former city mayor cleared of any wrongdoing City council publicly sets the record straight Cindy Aguirre-Herrera
(Marion) -- After months of scrutiny and speculation, a former mayor’s name has been cleared, restoring both his reputation and public trust. At the most recent meeting of the Marion City Council, Mayor Danny Loyola formally cleared former Mayor Victor Contreras of any wrongdoing related to city finances, bringing closure to a controversy that has lingered for more than a year. Backing up those findings was City Auditor Phil Vaughan, of Armstrong, Vaughan & Associates. Loyola, while also acknowledging the hard work of Mayor Pro Tem Kerry Gutierrez -- says thanks to the results of this comprehensive audit, the city affirmed that all funds were accounted for. “My big thing was with Mr. Contreras, I did tell him at one point, ‘I’ll look at it and if I don’t see anything or the auditor doesn’t see anything, then like, yeah, I’ll just (clear) your name. I don’t have an issue with that at all. (I said) you got put in a real bad situation. And I was like the allegations are crap. As much as myself and Kerry were in the bank account and just looking at everything -- the finances, we didn’t see anything suspicious. But then when you have a party that comes in -- a neutral party that comes in -and he looks at those, all of the accounts, and again, back to 2022 looking at some the 2021-22 (figures), he said the same thing – ‘nothing was found, nothing suspicious was found,’” said Loyola. Loyola says he felt it was necessary to take the
moment during the public hearing to formally clear Contreras’ name and make things right. “And I stated to Phil, ‘So, what I’m reading here is that nobody did anything. Nothing suspicious was found. Nothing at all whatsoever.’ And he said ‘nothing.’ So, I was like, okay. And I said, I don’t know if my attorney is going to like this comment or not, but I’m like, I just have a right to declare Mr. Conteras his name. I had said another word; I don’t think I can use it on the radio (or in the paper). But I had said another word, about the allegations being really crappy and that you pretty much ruined somebody’s life for allegations that were untrue. Now, he won’t get his life back from the past few years, but now, people will know that
nothing was taken at all whatsoever,” said Loyola. During the meeting, Mayor Loyola also read directly from a financial representation letter used in the audit process, which stated the city’s leadership had “no knowledge of any fraud or suspected fraud that affects the entity,” including any communicated by employees, vendors, or regulators. The document serves as a formal affirmation of clean financial practices from both management and staff involved in internal controls. Despite earlier confusion and missing documentation that raised public concern, officials now say the discrepancies were the result of recordkeeping errors, not fraud. “All I know is that in 2021 or late 2020, they ended up getting a software called Frey. (Under FREY, the modules include) BUCS (accounting) (CHIPS, payroll) and Cubic (utilities). And those are either your payroll services that we use internally or your utility services. Well, with the turnover rate going on, we found out that there was very little training on the system. So, somebody would work on it and six months (later), they would leave. Somebody would come in, but they wouldn’t get the training for it. They were just kind of guessing at what would be done. With it, we did figure out the bank, like certain things were repaid out of other accounts, which we had already established, and we knew that,” said Loyola. Mayor, pg. 3