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Let’s Focus on the Real Crime The May 30 letter to Saddleback Valley News from Evelyn Olson got my attention. According to her story, she witnessed a crime. Instead of calling the police, why did she wait a month and write a letter to the editor? Has Ms. Olson been following the month-long coverage of Easelgate? After a city employee tried to create a display of record-breaking length, activists counted only 300-plus easels when officials claimed 500 were in the city yard. Activists estimated 200 easels were in the photo of debris on public property [May 2 Saddleback Valley News]. Residents next saw a high number of easels in the county dump on El Toro Road. Olson says she saw the display being vandalized. This is a cover-up, thus the title: Easelgate. Does she realize the number of trashed easels was approximately 200? Isn’t it curious that no one – not the city, a citizen or council member – called the police about all the alleged vandalism? The police were never called because there was no "vandalism"; city employees trashed the easels while picking them up and wasted our tax money because they saw no further need for the easels. True, this is speculation on my part, but why hasn’t the city responded to question of what happened to the easels? All 500 of the easels could have been used again or donated to schools. I would have even taken one to help distribute them. The issue here is not really the easels but the WASTED taxpayers’ money! MY money, YOUR money, and taxpayers should be outraged about another waste of our tax dollars. The waste is similar to the money spent to produce the City Outlook magazine. Are we some large corporate entity that can afford to produce an expensive, slick magazine as if we were trying to sell our city to each other? I believe there really was no crime of vandalism. The city should respond to the questions asked about the easels and stop the speculation. The real crime here is, as always, our wasted tax dollars. Kathy Miramontes, President |
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