Villa Hills Mayor Mike Martin has grown quite fond of telling anyone who requests copies of city documents or questions the accuracy of his bookkeeper's financial reports that all the records were missing when he arrived on the scene January 1, 2011. He'd love to fill those open records requests-but none of the records can be found. He promises that, just given a little more time, the financial reports will make perfect sense. Or so he says.
We have now confirmed that the previous city clerk had an interesting meeting with the special counsel hired to investigate all the questions swirling around the mayor. The clerk worked for Martin for several weeks before departing to take a job elsewhere.
Want a few highlights? The current, interim city clerk and mayor were shown where all the records were kept. A detailed description of how the records were organized was provided. As is the norm, city ordinances, municipal orders, proclamations and Executive Orders were stored in what is commonly referred to by clerks as a "Book of Ordinances". Meeting minutes, committee report minutes and financial reports presented to council at their monthly meetings were all stored in binders organized by date. In summary, everything was in proper order.
So how is it that records are now missing? Councilman Mike Pope has taken it so far that he sent an e-mail to the city attorney urging a criminal investigation into the "missing" records. From Pope's perspective, the mayor is the victim of the previous administration. But, what has really happened-and why?
Perhaps the interim city clerk is incredibly disorganized? Maybe the mayor simply resents having his "broad powers" scrutinized? Or is there another reason for the resistance to provide records when they are requested?
When the auditor presents his annual report to the city it might be interesting to ask him if he was provided all the city records he needed to conduct his review. If the answer is "Yes", that raises many, many other questions about the "missing records" claim.
