Owasso Mayor Doug Bonebrake talks in June about the resignation of former City Manager Rodney Ray as Councilor Chris Kelley listens. The city received a bill for more than $22,600 for an investigative report into Ray. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World
OWASSO – A Tulsa law firm has billed the city more than $22,600 for a never-made-public investigative report into a city manager who ultimately resigned.
Attorney Guy Fortney, of Brewster & DeAngelis, P.L.L.C., headed the investigation into Rodney Ray, who was suspended with pay May 24, the same day the City Council ordered an investigation into his office to look into an undisclosed employee complaint.
Following an executive session at a special meeting June 25, the City Council approved a resignation pact for Ray, extending him a severance package worth $185,073.
For an investigation that ran from May 30 through June 24, the city recently received an invoice from Brewster & DeAngelis, P.L.L.C. for 72.75 billable hours at a cost of $18,893.75, which translates into about $260 per hour, documents show. For the period of June 3 to July 3, additional disbursements of $3,740.49 for transcripts, photocopy expenses, postage and the reporting of depositions pushed the total cost to $22,634.24.
The invoice shows that the law firm presented the investigative report to the city council (1.5 hours) at a meeting June 18 and met with the panel regarding the report for three hours on June 21.
The Tulsa World has sought a copy of the report through the Open Records Act. But the requests were denied by the city, which cited a section of the act that says a public body may keep personnel records confidential that “relate to internal personnel investigations, including examination and selection material for employment, hiring, promotion, demotion, discipline or resignation...”
In an email response to the newspaper Tuesday, City Attorney Julie Lombardi wrote that neither the city nor the city council has copies of the report, which she said are in Fortney’s possession.
In his lawsuit alleging violatons of the state Open Records and Open Meeting acts, City Councilor Patrick Ross alleges that findings of Fortney’s investigation into Ray were distributed to the council at the June 21 executive session, then collected before its conclusion. Ross claims that Mayor Doug Bonebrake told councilors that was the only time the panel would get to see the report, according to the petition.
“The copies of the report were gathered, in whole or in part, to permit the City of Owasso in response to any request of the report under the Open Records Act, to respond ‘truthfully’ that no member of its staff or city council possessed a copy of the report,” Ross’ lawsuit states.
Ross states in his petition that the investigative report is not subject to the “personnel records” exception in the act because the city doesn’t have a copy of it in the personnel file the municipality maintains for Ray.
The investigation invoice details the review of an ethics complaint on May 31 and a three-hour interview with Police Chief Scott Chambless on June 6, records show. The bill also shows that sworn statements were taken from Ray, assistant city managers Warren Lehr and Sherry Bishop and Information Technology Director Teresa Willson.
In April, Ray had ordered the deletion of two police videos that showed a Feb. 1 traffic stop involving Owasso City Councilor and Vice Mayor Chris Kelley, a municipal memo shows.
Told initially by Owasso police that he was being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, Kelley later was driven home by a police officer without being arrested, authorities said.
In a memo to Willson dated April 25, Ray cited police policy relating to video and directed Willson to “purge the files listed below from our video files. There exist no case and no case reports relating to these files, thus they are unnecessary to maintain.”
In late July, J.B. Alexander filed a petition seeking a grand jury investigation that targets Ray. The 5,000 certified signatures of registered Tulsa County voters required to convene the grand jury are due Sept. 13.
Ray also faces criminal charges in connection with an alleged bogus check and the false reporting of a crime. He is accused of writing a bad check to a hearing aid company for $3,082.89 three years ago and then allegedly lying to police in 2012 about the checks having been stolen.
Owasso
The upgrade from 96th to 106th streets north is a candidate for federal funding assistance.
The former city manager ordered the purging of police videos showing a DUI stop of the vice mayor because he wanted to save the councilor the "embarrassment" of the images reaching the public, a top municipal official said.
