Fresno County District 2 supervisor candidate Paul Dictos, who wants county elections officials to refund him money for two missing words on his candidate statement, now is going after another public agency for money.
Dictos filed a small-claims lawsuit May 14 against the Pinedale County Water District, seeking $7,500 for an audit that he didn't finish.
Dictos, a certified public accountant, was hired for three years to prepare audits for the district. District officials say he quit in the middle of the third year.
In an interview, Dictos said he discovered financial problems with one of the district's contracts. But district officials did not want to hear about his findings and they yelled at him, Dictos said. So he quit.
David Rodriguez, president of the Pinedale County Water District board, said the district will fight Dictos' claim -- and may file its own lawsuit against Dictos to recoup the costs of hiring someone else to complete the audit.
"He was going beyond his requirements by demanding things he did not need to go into," Rodriguez said. "He wanted to go into the day-to-day procedures. ... We felt he was going beyond the bounds of his auditing requirements."
Rodriguez said the district was forced to hire another auditor, who completed the work faster than Dictos and without the documents he demanded.
In the previous two years of preparing audits for the district, Dictos said, he found some financial issues, but district officials worked with him to sort them out. This year was different.
"They stopped cooperating with me, created a hostile environment and forced me out," he said.
The small-claims case was filed one day after Dictos filed a $2,000 claim against the Fresno County elections office.
Dictos complained recently that elections officials left his name off the bottom of his candidate's statement on the sample ballot. He is challenging Supervisor Susan Anderson and Fresno City Council Member Brian Calhoun for the District 2 supervisor seat.
The Fresno County elections office apologized to Dictos and offered a pro-rata refund for the missing two words -- about $15.
County Clerk Victor Salazar said Dictos filed a claim against his office seeking a full refund of the $2,000 he paid for his candidate statement.
In addition to his name not being placed at the bottom of his statement, Dictos said an "and" was added to the text that created a "serious grammatical error."
Salazar said the issue has been referred to Fresno County lawyers. Salazar also noted that all candidate statements are available for review before they are finalized.
"He has run for multiple offices so he certainly should be familiar with the process," Salazar said.
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