So what does Mr. Smith want in what appears to be a non-stop search-and-destroy mission? "Oh, public records of this and that, documents and other things," Rothal says, unhappily. And of course, because they are public records, Rothal won't refuse Smith's requests. "But it goes on and on," he says, "as we have our staff at City Hall try to locate the records that Smith wants. It's time consuming and it's costly. It takes people away from the jobs they normally do."
Largely, it's a fishing expedition that leads to nothing other than more requests in an effort to find something that might embarrass the mayor in a recall ad. Another word for it is "pestering" at public expense, both the records' searches and the cost of a special election if Mendenhall and his cronies follow through on their threat.
Frankly, it's hard to know the motives behind the notion other than Mendenhall has a vendetta against Plusquellic, regardless of how it might harm to stability of the city at a time when economic survival is on everybody's mind. Plusquellic, after all, was one of a group of mayors who have been meeting with President Obama and congressional leaders to get a share of the stimulus money for their cities and has repeated his proposals on national TV this week. It's hardly a time to be bombarding the mayor's administration with ludicrous requests and political threats. That says a lot about the ones who recklessly remain unconvinced of the gravity of the current economic crises, don't you think?
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