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Dear Editor:
I have lived in Westfield for over 30 years. My wife and I are invested in Westfield.
The past two years have been rough. The change in the makeup of the City Council has caused mistrust, rude public decorum, lawsuits, threats, and political backstabbing. Several members of the new Westfield City Council have an axe to grind with the mayor. It is hard to remember when the City Council and the Mayor’s office worked together, but they did. The real reason it doesn’t work now is simple: mistrust.
Many thought that Cindy Gossard was not handling the office of Clerk Treasurer with honesty. Her tactics to hide reports, delay reporting, change payroll procedures, directing Sheriff’s deputies to confiscate city employee phones, and hiring software experts to break into the city’s office and extract computer hardware were shady at best. The investigations into the Clerk Treasurer office were necessary to protect Westfield from potential criminal fraud.
What the investigation found was not fraud but ongoing incompetent behavior by the Clerk Treasurer’s office. The City of Westfield had outgrown the abilities of this office and they struggled. We need to become a second-class city.
Mayor Cook was justified, in my opinion, to call for an audit for Grand Park, his administration, the Clerk Treasurer’s office, and more. It was expensive, but it was necessary to move forward. My question is: What if there was criminal fraud discovered? How much would that cost Westfield both financially and in reputation?
David Mueller
Westfield