Three Westlake residents met with Calcasieu District Attorney John DeRosier on Wednesday, requesting that he look at the city’s books to see if malfeasance was committed by Chief Administrative Officer Lonnie Smart.

Laura Gardner and two other Westlake residents who chose not to be identified presented DeRosier with an unsigned letter from Kristi Ledger, which outlined their complaints against Smart.

“Today we stand before you asking for you to apply the full extent of the law to correct the ongoing wrong doings and outright malfeasance in office that we are currently enduring, such as, the spending of $5 (million) of borrowed bond money to build our Police Station and Club House,” the letter reads.

“Once you read the deposition of Mr. Smart, you will see that not only has he outright refused to provide timely financial reporting, he has actually taken over $400,000.00 out of the city coffers and has given it to an acquaintance through under handed dealings with real estate that we the citizens owned out right.”

Gardner told the American Press that the group is asking DeRosier to prosecute Smart if malfeasance is discovered.

“There’s $400,000 that is missing from the city that we’re trying to determine if it’s missing-missing or if it’s funds that have been rerouted that we’re not aware of where they were rerouted to,” Gardner said. “So we’re asking the DA to assist us in finding out where that money went and if it is a criminal act that the $400,000 is missing.”

DeRosier said the group will have to provide him with more evidence against Smart before he can prosecute. He said that as of Wednesday, he has not found any evidence of Smart committing malfeasance.

“They were telling me that this $400,000 is, quote,

missing,” DeRosier said. “What they wanted to know is if it’s missing, is that a crime? So I asked them a question: Is it missing in the sense that it is in a particular account dedicated to be spent on the golf course, or on the sewer plant, or on some retirement of a bond, or something like that and was spent on something else? Or is it missing in the sense that it was in a box somewhere and somebody stole $400,000? They don’t know that. They don’t know if it’s missing period, or if it’s simply utilized to pay something other than that for which it was dedicated. So we don’t know that.

“When you say money is missing, to me that says it’s gone,” he added. “Somebody’s taken it or somebody has misappropriated it. Not that somebody has used it to pay one bill instead of another, moving money around to somewhere else. They agreed that they did not know the answer to that. So whether the money is missing or not is really a question. Whether it’s proper management or bad management, they don’t know the answer to that, nor do I.”

DeRosier said the issue is going to require an audit.

Smart said $400,000 is not missing from the city’s books. He said none of the city’s audits “show a defalcation of $400,000.”

“They have to be accountable for these allegations,” Smart said. “I’m going to make them prove it. That’s nasty politics; that’s dirty politics. They need to be willing to accept the liability of that.”

Smart alluded to the 2012 investigation by the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office, which he said “found nothing.”

“Two councilmen, John Cradure and Wally Anderson, in 2012 went to the Sheriff’s Department with all kinds of allegations,” Smart said. “They called in the state legislative auditors, the Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s Office. All three of them investigated, all of that, two years ago. Nobody found anything. The district attorney himself exonerated anybody in connection with those allegations. All of that is in written record, every bit of it.”

With respect to the $5 million in “borrowed bond money” that the letter says was spent “to build our Police Station and Club House,” Smart, who said he began his duties Dec. 1, 2009, said he “had nothing to do with that.”

“The City Council accepted the bond and spent the money,” Smart said. “I wasn’t even there. By the time I got there, the money had been spent.”

At the Westlake City Council meeting last month, Mayor Dan Cupit said city officials will discuss budgets and audits at their meetings in November and December.(MGNonline)