Town council meeting cut short

Members of the public were greeted to a truncated meeting of the Saratoga Town Council on Oct. 1 as the only items on the agenda included roll call, approval of the bills and adjournment. Mayor John Zeiger, following the Pledge of Allegiance and roll call, offered a limited explanation for the short public meeting.

"Due to circumstances this past week beyond the control of Town Hall, it was necessary to cut this council meeting short," said Zeiger. "What we're required to do by law is to pay the bills so, therefore, we will pay the bills and then we will be adjourning this meeting."

In under three minutes, the town council voted to approve the agenda and the bills. The meeting adjourn with Councilmember Jon Nelson providing the lone dissenting vote on all three motions.

Less than 24 hours after the town council meeting, a press release issued by Zeiger stated a warrant executed by the Carbon County Sheriff's Department had led to the seizure of a computer tower and several hard drives from Saratoga Town Hall.

"The Town of Saratoga received a 'clean' or good audit report, but due to certain findings noted in the 2017-2018 audit the Town of Saratoga has been working towards resolving those findings that were pointed out to the governing body after the audit report was delivered to the mayor and town council," the press release began. "These efforts have included employees of the Town working with the accounting software company to reconcile financial reports which have been provided to the governing body."

As was reported previously (see "Questions for the auditor" on page 3 of the May 29 Saratoga Sun), the most recent audit of the Town of Saratoga reported significant flaws in internal control. The audit also reported a negative balance for the airport fund which was recently the subject of a Saratoga Airport Advisory Board workshop.

The press release went on to read that the Carbon County Sheriff's Department had executed the warrant on Sept. 24. This was the same day of the airport advisory board workshop in which Cathy MacPherson had informed the advisory board that she had been instructed not to discuss certain aspects of town finances due to a development that morning (see "Increased revenue, increased deficit?" on page 1 of the Oct. 2 Saratoga Sun).

"The mayor and town council have been advised that the affidavit in support of the search warrant has been sealed by the court and therefore officials of Town are not allowed to discuss the affidavit in support of the search warrant with the public," read the press release. "The Town is not aware of any criminal investigation."

With rumors about the seizure of the hard drives circulating following the council meeting, the Saratoga Sun reached out Wednesday morning to Carbon County Attorney Ashley Mayfield-Davis and Circuit Court Clerk Jeanette Hagan. The call to Mayfield-Davis went unreturned while Hagan informed the Sun if such a warrant were issued and returned, it would be sealed.

Following the release of Zeiger's statement confirming the seizure of the hard drives Wednesday afternoon, Nelson confirmed that he had been involved in the seizure. According to Nelson, following the adjournment of the Sept. 20 special meeting of the Saratoga Town Council, he had been informed by Zeiger that the mayor had approved the purchase of a new computer for Saratoga Town Clerk Suzie Cox.

"He said 'She's having issues with her hard drive and we need to get her a new computer, so I've approved that she can go ahead and do that and I wanted you to know because it's going to be over the interdepartmental approval limit,'" said Nelson. "I asked him what the timeline was on that and he said 'Well, she's not sure if it's going to make it through the weekend, so we need to get it right away.'"

During the Sept. 20 special meeting, when Zeiger stated that Childress Accounting would be able to remotely access the Town of Saratoga's computers, Councilmember Judy Welton stated that she had been informed by Cox that there might be some issues with remote access.

Nelson went on to state that he excused himself from the conversation with Zeiger and attempted to contact MacPherson about the replacement of the hard drive. According to Nelson, following his attempted contact of MacPherson, he contacted Mayfield-Davis and asked to meet with her.

"Let me be clear, I didn't make a request that the hard drive be seized. I presented information to the county attorney about what I had just heard about, really, what had unfolded over the prior couple of weeks," said Nelson. "There's all this resistance to getting to the bottom of our financial situation. That's what my goal is here."

Other members of the Saratoga Town Council, however, appear to disagree with how Nelson has approached his goal.

"Councilman Nelson has been asking some good questions. I mean, these are questions the public needs to know. I think his method of getting the information is the wrong one," said Councilmember Steve Wilcoxson. "He should have went to Judy Welton."

When asked by the Sun why he did not go to Welton, Nelson stated that Welton "(has) not been oblivious to my concerns about the finances"

Following the seizure of the computer tower and hard drives, according to the press release from Zeiger, a copy was provided to the Town of Saratoga. Wilcoxson informed the Sun that he had been told by Zeiger that, despite having a copy of the hard drive, a short meeting was required due to trouble accessing the minutes and other essential documents.

"We could have accomplished the same thing without having the hard drive taken away, without discussing it in public. We could have done this without shutting the town down," Wilcoxson said. "We could have done the same thing and got the same questions answered without ruffling the feathers of the employees." 

In an interview with Cox on Friday, the town clerk informed the Sun that the seizure of the hard drives had not entirely shut down business for the Town of Saratoga.

"The billing was able to be done from the front desk computer. As far as pulling in the readings, going through those readings and preparing them to be printed, by the time we got to that stage of it we found out that we could not print those bills until my computer was set up," said Cox.

Cox also informed the Sun that she had been directed by Town of Saratoga legal counsel, Tom Thompson, not to access any of the other computers at town hall.

"I would assume that there's a lot of questions that, if those two computers were functional, why was I not able to prepare for the council meeting better," Cox said. "The answer to that is that I had been instructed not to get on any of the computers because the complaint was filed against me and, until I had a new machine, I was not supposed to be using anybody's." 

Nelson, meanwhile, appears adamant that his actions were the correct thing to do.

"This is not about employees or personnel, this is about finances," Nelson said. "Period."

The next meeting of the Saratoga Town Council will be at 6 p.m. on Oct. 15 at Saratoga Town Hall. Both Zeiger and Cox assured the Sun that a full agenda will be available.