Spa day for Fairfield Township staff or hiding out? Court forces Coles to produce receipts

What a former employee says happened when trustee invited staff for pedicures, lunch. Plus, a warning about the COVID load in our wastewater. And a drone’s-eye tour of the Purdue Memorial Union

Today’s edition is sponsored by The Long Center for the Performing Arts, which is bringing America to Lafayette for the first concert in the new Loeb Stadium. For details, scroll through today’s Based in Lafayette reporting project or click on the link below.

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COURT ORDERS COLES TO SHOW RECEIPTS IN FAIRFIELD TOWNSHIP

It took a court order, delivered Friday, for Fairfield Township Trustee Taletha Coles to open her office doors and share some of the receipts that detail some of the spending she’d refused to divulge to her township board and anyone else over the past two years.

What all is in a box of paperwork her attorney helped assemble to satisfy a public records lawsuit the Journal & Courier filed is still being sorted out.

But what’s already trickling out seems to confirm some of the stories former employees told about Coles’ spending habits – as well as some shenanigans meant to keep her township board from getting into what she’s maintained all along was her own business, no one else’s.

Fairfield Township Trustee Taletha Coles spars with township board members about accounting for township spending, during a budget meeting in 2021. (Photo: Dave Bangert)