By John Dobberstein, Editor
COWETA — Coweta Police Chief Michael Bell is expected to hold a press conference Wednesday to address an investigation ordered by the Coweta City Council and assigned to his department.
Bell said the probe was requested by the City Council in response to public allegations involving members of the Council, City Manager Julie Casteen “and/or” city staff, and that he was asked to investigate the matter “in a fair, impartial and unbiased manner.”
The city said it will provide initial information about the probe but questions regarding specific allegations, evidence, witnesses or other details, “will not be addressed at this time.”
Citing an internal letter, Fox23 News reported the investigation will look into possible real estate violations, misuse of non-disclosure agreements, and allegations of bribery tied to the scuttled Project Atlas data center.
Bell will also review claims of harassment involving children and whether any public funds were misused, the news station reported.
On the same day Beale Infrastructure dropped plans for a data center in Coweta, Mayor Naomi Hogue filed an Open Records request seeking text messages, email and Facebook messages, “for all city council members that have corresponded with” a list of 22 people who opposed the data center project.
In March, phone messages between Casteen and City Council member Jeremy Barnett from January were leaked to the public, where Casteen appeared to question the intelligence of some data center opponents.
The messages were shared by the “Say No to Coweta, OK Data Center” group on Facebook, whose members were vocally opposed to the proposed project.
After the messages emerged and the Sentinel inquired about them, Casteen issued a public apology.
“I recognize that what I said in text messages to others was inappropriate and hurtful, and I sincerely apologize,” Casteen said. “I take full responsibility for falling short of the standard this community deserves and am committed to better judgment and better communication moving forward.”
That same month, after Beale announced it was dropping the data center proposal, Casteen told the Sentinel that the city learned about emails “appearing to be from Coweta citizens” in support of Project Atlas that were sent to members of the Coweta City Council.
“Given that Council members were aware of many citizens’ specific feelings regarding Project Atlas, they suspected the emails may have been fraudulent,” she said.
“The City of Coweta is actively investigating the cause and source of these emails. Any citizen aware of an email that was supposedly sent, falsely representing their beliefs, is asked to contact the city of Coweta to let us know.”
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