Letter: City's Phony Or Questionable Statements Exposed

   On the subject of political spin, I think back to the story of a woman entering a room and finding her husband in a passionate embrace with another woman. When she confronted him he calmly replied, “The real question, honey, is whether you believe what you see or what I am about to tell you.”

   Independently, activist blogs and the Saddleback Valley News exposed several outright phony or questionable statements by city officials about the city’s 20th Anniversary photo display in early April. Ironically, in the midst of what activists now call “Easelgate,” city council members complained in an SVN series on activist blogs that bloggers publish false information and do not give city officials a chance to set the record straight.

    Easelgate started with a display of city-scene photos mounted on about 500 wooden easels along 1.2 miles sidewalk from the Murray center to La Paz and Marguerite.

Activists immediately raised questions on the blogs:

1. The city prohibits signs and displays on public sidewalks that are not held by a person. We activists know this from our political campaigning days. If stand-alone political signs are obstructions even with activists present, why are unattended city displays okay? Well, the city exempts itself from adhering to its own sign code.
2. After the event, an activist spotted easels in the creek bed behind the shopping center at La Paz and Marguerite, and reported it to the blogs.
3. News reporter Lindsey Baguio noticed the blog postings and quoted Keith Rattay, director of community services, as saying the easels were temporarily stacked there, even though an accompanying staff photo appeared to show they were broken and dumped, with legs sticking up in the air. Blog photos were more explicit. He said the easels cost $15 each.
4. The city bragged about a big photo response from residents, with 500 instant cameras handed out, to be returned with city impressions for the photo display. Activists remarked that most of the photos were artsy and seemed to have been taken by the same few people.

   After the easels were cleared out, activist Lisa De Paul Snyder, accompanied by Baguio and a News photographer, tracked them to a dump. So if they were merely stacked and not broken, why trash them? And only $15 bucks per easel? De Paul Snyder on May 23 sent a request to the city for public documents related to the photo display. On June 2 and again on 16 she received letters each stating the city needed 14 more days to respond. “A voluminous amount of separate and distinct records need to be searched and examined and multiple city departments may need to be consulted with in order to comply with the demands of your request,” Baguio reported on June 25.

   My conclusion: Either the city was stonewalling or its national award-winning accounting department is so screwed up that it would take six weeks to document a relatively simple promotion. And wouldn’t streamlined accountability of projects be so routine that a single evaluation document be readily available? Finally all taxpayers should be offended when the city cites De Paul Snyder’s “demands.” If she had asked for massive information, the city could have quickly sent her the routine financial project report with expressed hopes it would fulfill her demand. That’s respect and efficiency.

   On a July 4^th Register website posting, a story to be published July 9 in the News, Baguio reports several statements by Rattay with “demand” documents in hand and she quoted activists as well:

1. The easels cost $40 each, not $15 as he said earlier.
2. Only 33 of the 500 free cameras were returned with photos, which to me backs up activists’ claims that the photos came from a handful of people, rather than the city’s claim of excellent public participation.
3. Rattay is quoted that due to early January rain, volunteers could not make the easels in time and the city had to contract out the work. Gee, who could anticipate rain in January? And why would the easels be built outdoors instead of in volunteer’s garages or a city warehouse?
4. Rattay now admits 93 easels were broken. But remember, they were neatly stacked in the streambed. (In a letter to the News, a city hall supporter claimed the easels were damaged by bicycling vandals. Such big-time vandalism apparently escaped the attention of everyone else for a month, including the police.)
5. Rattay’s claim that 150 people from various groups volunteered 800 hours to the project would be hard to disprove by dubious activists, but based on the first four items above, readers can draw their own conclusions.

   Keith Rattay’s documents show $31,575.73 spent on the project, including directional signs. Lisa De Paul Snyder told Lindsey Baguio she thinks the six-week delayed documents are phony. Regardless, they expose city spin.  Lisa’s effort was a vintage watchdog activism on Easelgate, and Lindsey did a good reporting job on both sides of the issue.

   So, on June 27, city council members complained in the News about false information in the blogs and not being contacted by bloggers.  Browse around the Mission Viejo Dispatch, which is mostly about documents or public statements by city officials. Anyone can comment instantly on any Dispatch posting. But considering that the city exempts itself from following its own code book, perhaps city officials are above responding like a lowly citizen would do.

   Easelgate destroys the credibility of city top brass. City staffers should be as offended as the public is. Officialdom’s phony and questionable statements make it look like the accounting and community services staffs are inept. But as I stated in another Dispatch column, I found the city staff to be open, professional and factual in my direct contacts in the good, old days of bottom-up management.

   Nowadays management is top down. “Do you believe what you see or what I am about to tell you?”

 Allan Pilger