Hoops continue road trip with Revs
City Manager Frank Benest and former Assistant City Manager Emily Harrison may have played a direct role in the criminal investigation of the Palo Alto Children’s Theatre, the Weekly learned Wednesday.
Police chief Lynne Johnson said Thursday that Benest had nothing to do with the trip, however.
Assistant City Attorney Donald Larkin also said Benest was not behind the trip.
The investigation heretofore has been characterized as an independent probe conducted by the Police Department, with virtually all statements about the probe coming from Johnson.
The transcript confirms Kaplan’s recollection that Yore told him he had been sent to Texas by Benest.
But Police Chief Lynne Johnson said Thursday that “Emily and Frank didn’t have anything to do with (the trip).”
She said Yore suggested the trip to her and Capt. Mark Venable, Yore’s boss, who approved it.
The transcript also shows discrepancies between Kaplan’s comments to Yore and those he made to the Weekly months later.
The Weekly published an account of the visit on Feb. 29 based on a telephone interview with Kaplan, which provided the first public confirmation that Yore was investigating the theater’s long-running costume sales and kids’ trips to festivals, led by staff. Kaplan formerly supervised theater Director Pat Briggs but moved to Texas in 2004.
Yore and other city officials have stated that Kaplan’s account of the interview was inaccurate.
He also prepared an approximately six-page list comparing the Weekly’s story with the original interview transcript.
The two men disagree on their conversation about costume sales, a practice in which the Friends of the Palo Alto Children’s Theatre, a nonprofit support group, would sell the theater’s used costumes and kept the proceeds.
In his list, Yore points out that he never used the word embezzlement or any word with a similar meaning during the interview. The transcript does not contain the word “embezzlement.”
Kaplan told the Weekly the arrangement with the Friends regarding costume sales was reviewed by the city attorney. But to Yore, Kaplan implied the costume-sales agreement with the Friends was more informal, according to the transcript.
“The way this is transcribed makes it seem as if I did not know what was going on. This is not at all what I was attempting to convey to Yore. I probably did put some qualifiers in my remarks because I had been away for four years and I did not have, at the moment he came to visit, access to any verifying documents. Nevertheless, I never said, ‘I kind of think they were costumes.’”
Kaplan said Yore also only quoted a portion of city policies relating to declaring property surplus and not the part about how the city manager can designate items as surplus.
The transcript also revealed other discrepancies. The interview took place on Halloween, not in mid-November as Kaplan told the Weekly. The woman accompanying Yore, who introduced herself to Kaplan only by her first name, is a management specialist with the police department, not a forensic accountant as reported.
The transcript also does not include any reference to a discussion of the middle-management unionization effort or a “climate of fear,” topics Kaplan told the Weekly were included.
In his list, Yore also pointed out an error made by the Weekly: No traveler’s checks were found in the theater office. The checks in the office were stolen in the June 18 burglary.
Kaplan has consistently maintained that Briggs, the late Assistant Director Michael Litfin and other theater staff members did not intend to break any laws.
Tags: assistant city attorney, bet, city officials, costume sales, criminal investigation, discrepancies, embezzlement, feb 29, independent probe, interview transcript, kaplan, larkin, lynne johnson, nonprofit support group, pat briggs, police chief, proceeds, public confirmation, recollection, Road Trip, telephone interview, the trip, theater director, Trip, trip to, venable
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Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 5:53 pm under