Easelgate Update
Editorial staff

City hall took three weeks to fulfill the most recent request for easel-related public records. One item of interest is the list of 150 volunteers who allegedly spent 800 hours assembling easels for the city’s 20th anniversary photo display. The request for records also asked for written communication. City hall completed compiling the records on Aug. 28, and activists will now begin examining the long-awaited data.

According to documents the city previously released in response to a public records request from community activist Lisa De Paul-Snyder, city contractor Jamey Clark was paid to build 100 percent of the easels. Why city administrator Keith Rattay is still insisting that volunteers made easels is a mystery. Considering that he’s been challenged nearly every week from the time he made the claim on June 18, shouldn’t he have been motivated to provide information in a timely manner?

The Easelgate battle escalated during the past week when Councilman Lance MacLean initiated lawsuits against two council candidates. Instead of a council majority approving such actions, MacLean involved Rattay to “prove” that a candidate’s comment about the cost of easels was false. Rattay has given numerous figures for the total cost of easels, and not one of them matches city records. He’s hardly in a position to challenge anyone else’s numbers when he can’t agree with his own.

As a new discovery, some city employees appear to be keeping a second set of files or participating in a shell game to hide expenses from public view and council scrutiny. This includes but is not limited to assigning costs to incorrect code numbers or incorrect department accounts. For example, some of the easel-related expenses were charged to maintenance accounts. How many employees are involved in cooking the books?

Any city employee who lies to the press, the residents or his supervisor should be fired. Rattay should have been fired several times over, and evidence of his lies continues to mount. Last week’s lawsuits take Easelgate to a whole new level.