ShawneeDispatch.com

Editor's note: The following was handed out at Monday's Shawnee City Council meeting by Council member Dan Pflumm as an open letter to Shawnee Mayor Jeff Meyers and City Council members.

Dear Mayor and Fellow Council Members:

Councilman Straub and I would like to definitively address a topic which has come up at our last several council meetings and also has received some publicity - an expense report I submitted for a dinner in Washington, D.C., that Councilman Straub and I attended with two Congressional aides. We want to provide you with the facts to answer your questions and lay the issue to rest.

As you know, the purpose of our trip to Washington, D.C., was to attend the National League of Cities conference. This conference offered opportunities via formal forums and informal conversations to present the goals and aspirations for the City of Shawnee and discuss City needs. Over time I have learned that the informal forums and meetings often offer the best opportunities for enlisting support for our City's goals. While there, we had the honor of meeting with two aides from Senator Sam Brownback's office for dinner - an opportunity we took to discuss the needs of our City in an informal setting. The facts around the dinner are as follows:

¢ Attending the dinner were George Stafford and Charles Alderson of Senator Sam Brownback's office, Councilman Straub and me. In my original expense submission, I incorrectly listed one of the attendees as Joel Leftwich of Senator Pat Roberts' office instead of George Stafford. No one from Senator Pat Roberts' office attended the dinner. Attendance can be verified with the attendees listed above.

¢ Included in that dinner bill were charges for two servings of beer and one bottle of wine. Originally I made an incorrect statement saying there was no alcohol on the bill. My recollection was based on the fact that I had not submitted a bar bill, and I simply did not capture the dinner wine and beer on the bill appropriately. I have since publicly corrected that.

¢ There has been a question around the number of attendees, given the number of ordered items on the bill. The four people I have named above were the only ones in attendance. The menu at the restaurant is a la carte and one of the attendees ordered two individual "entrees," thus raising the question of four or five attendees.

On Aug. 11, 20008, I resubmitted my expense statement with the above correct information. I regret the initial misstatements and hope you will understand them as simple mistakes and that during this dinner, Council Member Straub and I represented our City, our goals, our needs in the utmost appropriate manner.

Sincerely,

Daniel P. Pflumm