Photo: FLLewis / Media City G — Councilman Will Rogers requested additional information about controversial emails during Burbank City Council meeting May 10, 2016
The Tom Angel email scandal is not on the city council meeting agenda tonight, but that does not mean the controversy and the issues sparked by it are dead in Burbank. Some had hoped the council would call on Police Chief, Scott LaChasse, at the Tuesday, May 10 meeting, to explain how his ex-second-in-command, Tom Angel, got only a “slap on the hand” for forwarding derogatory emails. A report last month in the Los Angeles Times made those emails public. The uproar that followed forced Angel to resign from his position at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Only Councilman Will Rogers brought up the emails.
Photo: FLLewis / Media City G — City Council meeting at Burbank City Hall May 10, 2016
Rogers asked Interim City Manager, Ron Davis, to investigate and report back on an aspect of the email controversy. Rogers explained once as a reporter, working on a story, he requested expense documents from city officials. The existence of the documents were denied. He says he filed a lawsuit and just before the case was to go to court the documents were “found.” That’s why Rogers says he’s “extremely sensitive to ” what the Los Angeles Times says occurred when it made a records request. In an April 27 report the Times said: “In its response to the newspaper, the city did not initially include the emails forwarded by Angel until a reporter asked why they were missing. City officials said the emails were in a batch of records that were inadvertently overlooked.”
Rogers declared, that if true, “someone is trying to hide something” or it’s an example of “gross incompetence.” The council member says he wants to know “what happened” and “I’d like to talk about it publicly.” Right on, Rogers.
Photo: FLLewis / Media City G — Interim city Manager Ron Davis at Burbank City Council meeting May 10, 2016
Davis’ response to Rogers: “Don’t know the answer to that. I will have to get back to you.” When Davis comes back to council with some answers for Rogers, it would be a good time for a public airing of the questions around Chief LaChasse’s handling of ex-Deputy Chief Angel and those derogatory emails.
By the way, below is the explanation LaChasse sent to Davis about the emails. Most likely, these documents were passed on to council members several days ago. It seems only fair that the public should get the opportunity to read these documents as well.
