As the only Commissioner who is a chartered financial analyst and certified public accountant, certain town officials use my specialized knowledge and years of professional experience to spread falsehoods regarding the decisions I am making in my role as a Commissioner. I am repeatedly accused of violating my fiduciary duties and responsibilities to Dewey Beach. My real objective is to get the town’s internal controls which are a mess on the right path. I would like to set the record straight. From the Audit Report, it’s clear Town Management has done little this past year. That is why you often see “similar to a finding from a prior audit”. At Friday’s town meeting, rather than fess up, town management gave a lot of “I didn’t bring that info”. They would like to switch monthly financial reports to annual, keeping everyone in the dark.
Below are the falsehoods being spread:
Act 1
2/19 – Auditor (TGM) Resigns.
2/20 – I send a letter to TGM about control risk.
3/15 – TGM resignation is announced to Commissioners and public.
Result: Mayor Redefer & Commissioner Bauer go on radio and send press release falsely claiming TGM resigned over my letter. This is clearly not true since the letter was sent the day after TGM’s resignation.
Act 2
8/29 – 9/4 – I attempt to turn a private town management meeting with the auditor into a public meeting with the Audit Committee to prevent a repeat of 2018 (40% of Committee resign).
9/5 – I am solely blamed for delaying the audit because of those attempts. Despite the obvious reasons for my concerns, such as public transparency, the auditor previously stated in an email that the delay was caused by “additional employees expressing concerns which [they] feel compelled to follow up upon” and not that I was the one causing the delay.
Act 3
9/5 – I attempt to have an Audit Committee meeting within 7 days using special exception since Audit is past charter deadline.
9/6 – I get blamed for allegedly trying to circumvent the FOIA process by Mayor/Election Candidate Redefer who’s election strategy was to delay the audit and who missed the University of Delaware FOIA class others attended).
Act 4
9/7 – I recognized that the 7-day FOIA clock was running out (even though incorrect) and posted the Audit Committee agenda in town hall for the following Saturday. I focused on setting the meeting on Saturday, instead of Wednesday evening, in order to ensure voters were not disenfranchised by the short 3-day election day timeline.
9/9 – I am accused of creating a hostile workplace, not being of sound mind and being capable of harming someone. With these horrible and unproven accusations, town officials call for my removal as a Commissioner and Audit Committee Liaison.
These falsehoods are outrageous and are not grounded in real-life events or actions. I am the best person to serve as a Commissioner and Liaison to the Audit Committee because of my background as a CPA and professional financial experience. Additionally, Mayor Redefer and Commissioner Bauer have consistently criticized my FOIA requests. Yet, I have paid for each of those requests out of my pocket and have uncovered numerous issues doing so. Those problems are posted here. My goal for Dewey Beach is simple – Stop sweeping everything under the rug and fix the accounting and internal control problems.