Easelgate Update

If residents think city hall’s Easelgate hoax can't get worse, stay tuned. Someone emerged last week with knowledge of city employee Keith Rattay’s claim of volunteers building easels. As a summary, after months of investigation, not one person has been found who built easels other than city contractor Jamey Clark, who was paid $45 an hour.

One of the names that turned up in the city's easel records is a resident who works with scout groups. When a blog staffer called her to ask why her name was among the records, the scout leader said Girl Scouts were interested in providing community service, and they answered the city’s call regarding the easel project. The scout leader’s description of the scouts sounded as if they were primarily children, and that information had already come from another source. It explains why Rattay is claiming volunteers participated, yet city records show no one but Clark did the work. Upon hearing the job description from the city, the scout leader indicated she was unsure if the scouts could help, but she sent them – not to construct easels but to paint them.

City records verify Jamey Clark billed the city for painting all the easels, plus all the signboards that were used in the photo display. If Girl Scouts painted any easels, the easels were repainted by Clark. Rattay may have tried to fool the public with his implication that volunteer help reduced easel costs. Given the circumstances, volunteers likely raised the costs. The “work sessions” took place on weekends when hourly employees would have been paid overtime for supervising kids.

The deceit goes beyond Rattay’s well-documented lies to newspapers. Scouts were drawn into Rattay’s web of “community service” when no such situation existed.

The easels were part of a photo display conceived by city hall employees in a wasteful project that had failed long before the photos went on display. Very few residents returned 500 free disposable cameras, and staff members evidently provided most of the photos to give an appearance the community participated. To demonstrate city hall’s opinion of everyone’s effort, check the pictures on this blog posted April 27 or Brad Morton’s April 22 MissionViejoDispatch.com showing hundreds of easels trashed on a hillside. Children were used by adults in city hall to prop up the appearance of “engaging the community,” and then Rattay falsely counted them as easel builders in his June 18 memo to City Manager Dennis Wilberg. Was there one shred of integrity in the whole project?

By the time the scouts were painting easels, the deadline had passed for residents to return cameras. City hall employees knew the photo project lacked community participation, and it should have been quietly scrapped. Incredibly, city staffers started snapping pictures to create a sham photo gallery, and Jamey Clark made pricey, custom-built easels to display photos the community members didn’t take.

Instead of congratulating city hall for a brilliant community-engaging idea, residents complained about the trashy look of all the “junk” on the street, including the easels, yellowed photos and the bizarre lawn furniture parked on the corner of La Paz and Marguerite. Probably because of the complaints, Jamey Clark’s workers hauled off the junk quickly and threw it in a heap on a hillside. They didn’t carefully stack it because it was next going to a dump. By the time Rattay was proclaiming that nearly all 500 the easels would be used again by the city or school groups, Jamey Clark had taken truckloads – up to 200 easels – to a county dump on El Toro Road.

When an activist asked in August for names of volunteers who built easels, Rattay said the names had been discarded. In addition to disposable cameras, the contractor's work, materials, names of volunteers and taxpayer dollars were all deemed throwaways.

***

Important notice to those who have contributed information about Easelgate and other city shenanigans: check your email. Look for communication from edt@tylerent.com