Emails? We don't know nothin' 'bout no emails!

["Fake but accurate" file photo]

Here's the latest in the Cleveland Shitty Council's "Mystery Of The Disappearing Emails":

Cleveland City Councilman Joe Santiago turned over three computers from his ward office Friday to city officials and will open his personal e-mail account to be searched for e-mails about his relationship with a controversial bar .

Computer experts will also begin a "deep dive" of the city's outdated computer system today in an attempt to find missing e-mails to Santiago's City Hall account from May 2006 to July 2007, a period in which Santiago helped obtain a liquor permit for La Copa.

The bar on Clark Avenue near West 25th Street is managed by a convicted drug dealer and which now draws complaints from neighbors about fights, gunshots and rowdy behavior.

Results of the city computer search should be available, in part, by Wednesday.

Because city information technology employees could not locate the e-mails, the city has hired paying Visual Evidence/E-Discovery, a downtown Cleveland firm.

The company president, Daniel Copfer Sr., is the brother of Ron Copfer, a political insider who owns Fathom IT Consulting. Fathom is finishing a $321,000 upgrade to city council's systems, including the e-mail system the e-mails cannot be recovered from.

The search on all the computers will cost about $25,000, said Katherine Samsa, a spokesperson for Council President Martin Sweeney.

"Council's working hard at this and acknowledging that the state of our system is unacceptable," she said.

Sure...what could possibly be inappropriate in hiring the brother of the political hack IT "consultant" to attempt recovery of the emails?

"Independent data recovery services would have been really, really expensive. But good ol' Ron got us a 'family discount' so that we can save the taxpayers money, 'cause we're lookin' out for you. Trust me...$25K is a super special deal! It's for the children!"

E-mails to and from city accounts are public records under state law ands are supposed to be retained, but the city has been unable to meet The Plain Dealer's request for them.

Sweeney said this week that the city system does not save e-mails accessed from outside, nor does it save e-mails forwarded to outside accounts. That focused attention on the computers in Santiago's ward office where an assistant often opened the messages.

"Additionally, the dog ate our email server."

David Eden, a spokesman for Santiago, said the councilman turned over the computers because he has nothing to hide. A council employee picked all three up from the ward office Friday afternoon.

"If there's anything on there, they get it," Eden said.

My guess is that a clumsy, half-assed attempt has been made to "sanitize" the computers. I predict that these efforts will prove quite successful.

Next week, Eden said he and Santiago will go through Santiago's personal account on the hosting company Juno with an IT consultant and print any e-mails to or from Santiago's council e-mail account. He will not simply turn over the entire account to the city, Eden said.

Because who knows what other damning malfeasance might would almost certainly be found?

A representative of the city's law department could attend if necessary, Eden said.

As long as it's another crony with skeletons in their closet.

Eden said Santiago could not do that on Friday because he was at Lutheran Hospital with a kidney infection and wants to be there in person as the Juno account is checked.

Originally, the excuse was going to be that Santiago was in the hospital giving birth to an adopted Chinese orphan with AIDS as well as delivering a litter of puppies (awwww...puppies!) until it was pointed-out that even the average voting moron in Cleveland might not buy that.

Eden did not know if Santiago saves e-mails in a filing system or if Juno deletes them automatically over time. He said Santiago would grant permission for Juno to search its own computer records for that period, if needed.

Council considered doing the extensive search of the city computer system on Friday, but the system must be shut down. The search will occur on Saturday instead.

Because it's so much easier to search computers which are shut down. Plus, we can get us some o' that sweet, sweet overtime, baybee!

Samsa did not know why it would take until Wednesday for results and the company could not be reached Friday evening.

Oooh...color me "surprised"!

"Cleveland: All the corruption of Chicago, but without the pesky robust economy!"