Council Refuses Struiksma Probe : Cleator Fails to Persuade Quorum to Study Allegations

Councilman Bill Cleator’s call for a closed City Council session to investigate allegations about the city auditor staff’s advice to acting Mayor Ed Struiksma fizzled Monday.

Cleator could not persuade a quorum of council members to attend the closed session to investigate allegations that the staff of City Auditor Ed Ryan advised Struiksma to reconstruct reports of expenses incurred during a 1984 trip. In addition to Struiksma, Councilwomen Abbe Wolfsheimer and Judy McCarty said the executive session was unnecessary. Councilwoman Gloria McColl was absent from Monday’s meetings because she was out of town on city business.

Cleator called for the meeting last week, after it was revealed that the district attorney’s office was investigating the reporting of $600 in expenses by Struiksma on a 1984 trip to Boston and New York. Struiksma said he lost receipts from the trip and that, after informing the city auditor’s office, his staff was told by a member of Ryan’s staff to reconstruct the bills. Ryan has denied that he or his staff made such a recommendation to the councilman. Also at issue is a $65 meal Struiksma billed to the city which might have been paid for by someone else.

“I maintained all along that it was totally inappropriate for the council to hold a closed session of this kind,” Struiksma said. “To do so would place Mr. Ryan’s position in jeopardy and involve the City Council in a political situation which it has no reason to get involved in.” Both Cleator and Struiksma are running for mayor.

Wolfsheimer said she would have refused to attend an executive session to look into Struiksma’s expense reporting. “All this comes down to is bringing the political campaign inside City Hall, and I want no part of that,” Wolfsheimer said. “It would be quite premature to hold such a session when we have no facts to deal with. There would be nothing substantive to talk about at this point.”

McCarty said she wanted to quell a “sense of hysteria in the air on the 10th floor (of City Hall, where council members keep their offices). Whether this is an outgrowth of the tough new standards regarding public expenditures or an outgrowth of the mayor’s race is difficult to determine. What should not be difficult to determine is a need for everyone involved to cool down and let the established process take its course.”

Cleator, in a prepared statement, said he “called for a closed-door session concerning the allegations about advice given to Ed Struiksma by the city auditor or his staff because obviously, someone is lying. It is the responsibility of the City Council to get to the bottom of this.”

Cleator said he would abandon his call for a closed council session, which he said McColl would support when she returns to City Hall next week, if City Atty. John Witt formally requests that the district attorney “broaden his inquiry on whether the auditor’s staff did or did not advise Ed Struiksma to fill out fraudulent statements.”