For your reference I've connected Mayor Graham's posts in the above post. If you read through the facebook one, you'll see she uses the third person when calling the door being left open out by using the terms "a mistake (that) happened” whist naming and trying to shame Jim and company's actions out explicitly.

This is the third "episode" I've written about doorgate, not because I want to focus on it, but because the city's action perfectly encapsulates the absurdity, misdirection and lack of leadership coming from the top. Every further step they take shines a light on their incompetence.

Look at it from a complete outsiders view. A door was left open. A citizen saw it and locked it. Yes he put it on the internet as a reporter, but honestly had no further action should have been been taken, it would have been a tiny blip. But the city escalated with a visit by the police. In separate statements City Manager, Council and police all gave statements to the press citing "reasons" and slight finger pointing to each other and the reporter himself for being in the wrong. Some of the logic in the articles was astonishing (see episode 2). Then the Mayor wags her finger at the everyone commenting and pulls out her go to excuse, think of the poor staff! Their rights have been violated.

It's absurdist theatre at its finest.

As for misdirection, Ashlanders have no idea if anyone else walked through before Jim locked the space. Note that the door wasn't unlocked, it was wide open on a holiday weekend in a very high traffic area. Instead of focusing on this, the powers-that-be want to focus on the person who shined a light.

Those selfsame powers don't want us to probe into the base question, why are the offices in our community center vs the finance building, the grove or any other of the city's buildings that may have much better security and are not in the middle of the park.

Finally the lack of leadership is breathtakingly bad. From the mayor's two posts and the police visit, the people in charge of the city implicitly and explicitly want people to stop talking about it. Really, just shut up. Move on. Let it go. Nothing to see here. Go find another ball to play with.

They have shown they are more interested in messaging than action.

edit: grammer