City of Independence Mayor Rory Rowland shares statement following leak

Independence Mayor Rory Rowland shared the following statement tonight regarding the illegal sharing of the attorney notes associated with the Independence Police Overtime Investigation.  You can find the video of this statement below. 

“As I said last week, I am outraged at the overtime issue. We are awaiting recommendations from the City Manager in response to the findings that were presented just seven days ago. As the presentation from the special counsel found, these practices that were going on have been happening for decades. The City Manager is working closely with his executive team and myself to develop a comprehensive set of recommendations and actions to ensure this does not occur again.? 

The attorney’s notes were provided to a very limited group of people, and it has been illegally shared. It contains attorney client privileged information and confidential personnel files.  

Today we are once again faced with those working for the status quo. Those who would rather expose our city to increased legal liability to move their own agenda forward – this will not stand. Putting your individual needs and wants before those of our residents – this will not stand. 

Because of this action, we now have to prepare to pay further legal costs.?As opposed to working on solutions and moving our city forward. This person has chosen to take a different approach. 

When I ran for Mayor, I was fighting the status quo. I ran to focus on making our parks better, maintaining our roads, making our community safer, working on homelessness. But this person has chosen to work against that and now those resources will be used to defend this action. Your tax dollars.

This is not the city I know, nor it is the city I want us to be. When information is leaked, our employees can’t trust us to come forward to fix problems.”?