Revisionism reaches the podium...

First, listen to the entire video from the September 3, 2013 City Commission meeting where Lynn Anderson responds to questions regarding the Complete Census Count Committee. Note the following statements by Ms. Anderson.

At approximately 51 seconds in this video she says, "A bill was not necessary to submit by this contract arrangement." She then goes on to say that Rachel Smithson created a PowerPoint presentation on the Complete Count Committee's efforts, and then she left the city. The impression is left that the PowerPoint was never formally presented to the City Commission. I have asked for a copy of it and no one is able to find one now. I will keep you posted if I hear differently.

Then at 1:56 of the video Ms. Anderson repeats again "There was no bill. It wasn't necessary."

Here are some documents that I was able to collect which address this issue. This is the heading and top of the first page of the contract between the City and Get Counted, LLC:

This is the second page which talks about billing:

Notice under "V. Fees" that the total amount paid would be not-to-exceed $20,000 for "successfully completed and accepted services"... Also note that the City would pay up to $6,000 to cover "event related expenses, including advertising materials, facility reservation fees or other costs directly associated with the event. All such expenses musts have the prior approval by the City Manager."

Then, completely contrary to Ms. Anderson's assertions at the regular City Commission meeting September 3, 2013 , the following language is found under "VII. Billing." I repeat it here for clarity: "CONSULTANT shall submit to the Project Manager for approval an invoice on a bi-weekly basis, along with itemized billing detailing the services successfully completed, prior to receiving compensation. The CONSULTANT shall indicate on the invoice total project costs to date. The Project Manager will approve all or that portion of the invoice which has been successfully accepted by the City." (emphasis added)

Surely there should be a record of this, what some people call a "paper trail", showing exactly what was invoiced, how much and when. No one has seen that yet. It appears Ms. Anderson is saying on behalf of Ms. Karson that it was Ms. Karson's understanding that no billing was required? I guess she just said "Show me the money" and that was good enough? Perhaps she didn't read the contract.

Not that the city wasn't interested in the possibility of some monkey-business. Here is page 3 of the contract.

The City even reserved the right to AUDIT and to "examine all records, papers or documents related to the consultant's performance." Then, where are they, why hasn't anyone seen them and why can't they be produced? And note that "Each and every report, draft, work product, map, record and other document reproduced, prepared or cause to be repaired by the consultant would be the exclusive property of the city." Where is the city's property?

Then we jump to November 15, 2011, at the regular City Commission meeting. Here is the packet for that meeting. Notably, no minutes are posted on the city's website for 2011 and there is no audio available. There is only the abridged version of the packet. Here is the agenda title page:

Note that Item 6 includes an update from the Census Complete Count Committee. Don't miss the fact that this occurs just three months short of two years from the date the contract was executed. It was also conveniently just after the November 2011 election. This is the introduction from Ms. Margolis, who was Assistant City Manager at the time:

You can read the entire item by following the link above. It starts on page 8 of the packet.

And here we have the usual mea culpa that we had come to expect from City Manager Susan Stanton about the whole ordeal:

So, there we have it. I don't know how it could be construed that "...a bill was not necessary to submit by this contract arrangement." Where are they? Why haven't we seen them? Why has revisionism been allowed to jump from a blog to the podium in the City Commission chambers?

Update: We are still looking for that PowerPoint. We are still waiting for an answer to whether or not a PAC received compensation for their attorneys. We are also making sure that anyone currently asking for money to pay attorney fees is denied.