The Reporter has learned a handwritten thank you note was taken from the trash of Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard, which was on private property and not set on the curb for collection.
A note expressing thanks for the mayor’s attendance at a campaign event for Adam Aasen, candidate for Carmel City Council, Southeast District, was posted on social media at approximately 9 a.m. Friday morning.
Aasen told The Reporter the note was intended to express support for the mayor’s re-election campaign and did not indicate he would unilaterally support all Brainard’s policies, which is what the social media poster indicated.
“The mayor attended an event and I mailed him a handwritten thank you note,” Aasen said. “I make it a policy to send handwritten notes to anyone who attends my events.”
While Mayor Brainard was unavailable for comment Friday afternoon, Allan Sutherlin, retired campaign advisor and long-time political consultant to Brainard, was available.
Sutherlin said he saw the original note while visiting Mayor Brainard at his home Sunday evening. Sutherlin also confirmed that this is not only a matter of going through someone’s garbage but of allegedly trespassing to do so.
“When it was posted I was on the phone with the mayor,” Sutherlin said. “The mayor was at an international energy conference in Colorado as a speaker. He said, ‘I don’t know how they got that unless they took it out of my trash. And if they took it out of my trash they trespassed because my trashcan is not on the street.’”
Sutherlin told The Reporter, “I just have to say that I’m disappointed. I thought we were above this.”
The original poster, whom this newspaper chooses not to name, later confirmed on social media that he had “staked out the mayor’s trash” for two weeks.
Editor’s note: The Reporter has chosen not to publish the details of the note or the social media post.