The Devolution of Scottville City Clerk to City Jerk

[XLFD]

We have seen how Scottville City Clerk Kelse Lester spent a pleasant afternoon in April going AWOL from  her job at city hall (more on this later) just to travel to the city limits where she rummaged through the house of her ex before going next door, terrorizing a small business by creating a scene and then hurtling a softball-sized rock against the window, allegedly raining glass down on two young toddlers below.  The full story and police report of that incident was related in The Devil and Kelse Lester.

We will not explore her personal life except where it intersects her professional life, as it did on April 21st.  We will instead consider that Clerk Lester at one point in her job was a diligent and dedicated public servant, and using that as a baseline show that her ethics and professional output suffered greatly over a fairly short period of time.  

Kelse Lester was hired in September 2019, after the retirement of Clerk Deborah Howe, in the minutes she transcribed then, they were very much in the same style and manner as the retiring clerk, whose last set of minutes was 5 pages long with plenty of detail about what was said by officials and the public at the meeting, as were her prior efforts.  

Before the pandemic struck, Clerk Lester kept that standard up.  She even had a 10 page effort that were the last minutes taken under City Manager Courtney Magaluk's tenure.  Following the circus clown show that led to Magaluk getting ran out of town due to untrue city official anecdotes, the minutes of meetings became more like sloppy seconds. 

When Magaluk's separation agreement was finalized in February, Clerk Lester (to her credit) actually entered my full comment into the record, it detailed various illegal acts by the acting city manager and the city treasurer that amounted to embezzlement by those in charge of the city's financial records.  When these minutes were approved at the next meeting seems to be when she was instructed to change her ways.  It corresponded with the meeting Mayor Marcy Spencer decided to break with the charter and abolish the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting.  Clerk Lester greatly reduced her minutes, barely making two pages of notes, and only listing who spoke during public comment, not even trying to summarize what they said.

This neglect of the minutes would further metastasize at the first meeting of May, where much less than two pages were used at the meeting I was unlawfully thrown out of.  Nothing in the minutes describes any part of that controversy, nor do they describe much else.  Similar meetings used to amount to 4 to 5 pages of minutes when she was properly doing them.

If you are wondering why I am showing, describing and worrying about meeting minutes, their length and their completeness, it's because they illustrate her slide into corruption during the same time, as seen in her paychecks over these times and their reliance on meeting minutes for many hours of overtime.  In establishing a baseline, we find that Clerk Lester was not in the habit of charging overtime in this and her prior paychecks when City Manager Magaluk was signing the paychecks, this was the pay stub when Chief Murphy took over as ACM for the latter days of the pay period:

For what appears to be the first time, the clerk charges an hour for overtime for a commission meeting the next paycheck, where Magaluk is still around but on leave:

A note on allowable overtime for City of Scottville employees is contained in the Scottville Personnel Manual:

Overtime is stressed to be minimized and approved ONLY in emergency situation (not a regular meeting) and infrequent, non-routine projects or work (also not a regular meeting).  You will note that Chief Murphy does not sign (authorize) the approved line, but the extra overtime was paid to Clerk Lester.  I asked in my FOIA request to the city to receive all written authorizations for overtime, I received none.  

The next paycheck had Clerk Lester charging 2 hours of overtime for a 55 minute meeting and six hours for a generic commissioner package which is another routine duty that doesn't trigger overtime.  Again, Clerk Lester gets paid for her overtime which was never authorized or allowed.

She claims a more modest 1.5 hours overtime for a 58 minute meeting (the one she worked 6 hours of overtime to create a packet) then has 2.5 more OT hours at an undocumented e-meeting.  Again, no authorization and nothing that seems to qualify for overtime work.

By the next paycheck, CM Magaluk would be out of the picture for good, and the new boss signs a paycheck that shows Clerk Lester charging 4 hours of OT for two 58 and 41 minute meetings followed by 6.5 hours OT for writing the minutes.  An additional 2 hours OT was claimed for a last minute Planning Commission meeting.  There was not a noticed SPC meeting held that Saturday, there was a regular meeting late on the following Tuesday.  That's 12.5 hours OT in total for doing her normal duties during non-emergencies, which amounted to attending and writing minutes for a meeting taking a little over an hour in time.

The next meeting lasted just over an hour, but Clerk Lester claims 2 hours and then 3 more OT for writing the minutes.  These routine duties, as noted, do not qualify for overtime work, but Police Thief Murphy once again gives his authorization on them.

Her next payroll has her working OT on multiple days for an 81 minute meeting, resulting in 10 hours total or roughly OT 8 times the actual length of the meeting.  It must be pointed out that Acting City Manager Murphy and City Treasurer Kathy Shafer, both allowing this unwarranted capture of overtime for the clerk, are cashing in big themselves at the same time.  

A 54 minute meeting has Clerk Lester overcharge the treasury for 7.5 hours of overtime work in the next paycheck.  That's like working 1.5 regular days when the minutes are beginning to look as if a competent clerk could just transcribe them during the course of the regular meeting.  

The meeting in this pay period was the 42 minute Zoom meeting where Communistioner Rob Alway would not allow anybody to speak during public comment.  Again, she claims 7.5 hours of OT she is not qualified for and Murphy authorizes it.  

Unfortunately, these are the last of my payroll records for now, but it appears that since Police Thief Matt Murphy took over Scottville, in more ways than one, he has allowed Clerk Kelse Lester to embezzle about $150-200 every paycheck from the people that live in Scottville (while getting plenty himself).  It's not surprising that such criminal conduct in her position of public trust would drive her crazy enough to take out somebody's front window and endanger toddlers underneath that window.

One wonders whether she claimed overtime for that incident, it is apparent that she never took the time off of work to go to the small business and work her mayhem.  From her statement she claims she left work-- if we look at the COS employee handbook again:

According to Lester's account, this doesn't appear to be pre-planned PTO, which means to get authorization to leave work early she would have had to talk with ACM Murphy for approval.  One would logically expect that she would have told the deputy that she had conferred with the Scottville police chief before taking the time off and do the crazy things she would up doing.  One would have to believe that she was thus absent without leave from her post.  

One could make the point that since she never officially left her job that day, her actions that afternoon, including, trespassing, MDOP, and child endangerment, occurred while she was still officially on duty.  Let's just hope that she didn't charge the poor folks of Scottville overtime.

[Willy]

One of the best things that stands out about your reporting X, is that you have the facts and information to back up your claims. It's very hard for Scottville City Officials to take exception to your reporting if they cannot support, with facts, their side of the story. Not only do they not dispute your claims, they remain silent in hopes the malady will go away. Thanks, not only to the Commissioners who sit on their hands while offering no explanation but thanks to the MSP owned by Scottville Commissioner Alway whose news agency suddenly becomes deaf, dumb and blind when controversies about Scottville City scandals arise.

[XLFD]

Very good political cartoon depicting Scottville, but I don't see the gratitude on display when I attend meetings.  Today I received a FOIA response that confirmed the strong suspicion I had about Clerk Kelse Lester being on the clock when she was rummaging through someone's house without their permission, then going next door to throw a rock at a window and present a clear and present danger to the toddlers underneath it (which, according to the client, was known by Ms. Lester before the throw).

Note that Murphy confirms in his memo that Kelse never approached him for last-minute PTO-- he was the only one able to allow PTO at that point since he was both ACM and chief.  Clerk Lester never took time off, she was still on the clock, not just AWOL.  City Manager Newkirk went out of his way at the last meeting to claim that the clerk was not on duty when her psychotic episode on the outskirts of town happened, but he was lied to and looks foolish as a result.  He was also misinformed about what happened the night I was thrown out of the SCC meeting

Murphy goes out of his way to not explain what the issue was or what the discipline was, this just shows further what a terrible public officer he is, covering up what actually happened.

[Willy]

Thanks X. It will be interesting to see how the Council handles this situation, if they handle it at all. Since I do not read the MCP It would be interesting to know if Alway reported the incident in his news letter and if he did how thorough was the article. The Citizens of Scottville have a serious problem with the current Administration. Most of the people can't be pleased with the direction the City is being taken by those in charge of it's operation. If I lived there I would be wondering just who to trust on the Commission and in City Hall. 

[XLFD]

If Alway wrote anything on Lester, Murphy or Shafer, I guarantee it would be pure propaganda rather than anything newsworthy or true.  If I had to choose the most trustworthy person at Scottville city hall or on the commission, I would have to choose Commissioner Nathan Yeomans, he works at Ludington's water treatment plant, and so he doesn't always work for a City that acts so corrupt, like Scottville is currently.  Time to step up as a city commissioner, Nathan, or you'll just be forever known as a clowncilor.

There's another bombshell coming down from the pages of the Ludington Torch next week on Kelse Lester's career, this one is a game changer.