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O'Boyle email gets nothing right; Castillo terrorizes Lansing's east side October 19, 2022
In my story A win for the people: attorney-client privilege claim rejected, I told of obtaining an email that the City of Lansing didn't want the public to see. Parts of this email were quoted in another email from Development Director Donald Kulhanek to HUD official Portia McGoy which said only that the author was an assistant city attorney. Now that we have the entire email, we know the assistant city attorney was Amanda O'Boyle, who has been with the City since 2017. The full email is here. I will address it paragraph by paragraph:
The dead tree wasn't in Tammie's yard, it was in the next door neighbor's yard. She was not responsible for removing it and she was concerned that varmints were living in the rubble and that they could cause diseases, one of which was Leptospirosis, not leprosy. In fact, her dog did contract this disease and was kept at a veterinary hospital for a week. She spoke about the issue at a council meeting in 2015 and followed up with an email. Next paragraph:
That visit by "Code" O'Boyle refers to was on 11/19/2019 and resulted in an inspection report that made no mention of mold. It was a whitewash. We might not have known differently if not for Melissa Huber, who knew of Tammie's situation from Facebook and was present at the inspection. She wrote an account of her experience. She said the mold was so bad the inspectors had to step outside from time to time for fresh air. Donald Kulhanek was present at that inspection. Next paragraph:
This is where O'Boyle really gets confused. Either that or intentionally misleads. She appears to be getting her information from a pair of August 31, 2018 emails with the subject "Milk Crates violation" in which Tammie repeats posts from several outraged east side residents. Those posts appeared on the Eastside Neighborhood Organization's Facebook page. It all had to do with a crazed Code Compliance officer named Amy Castillo who was out to clean up the neighborhood and was snatching anything left outside a house - in the yard, on the porch, anywhere. (In this story, she red tags a home without doing an inspection.) O'Boyle seemed to think it was Tammie saying all this stuff, although Tammie says at the top of the second email:
If that statement doesn't make it clear that they weren't Tammie"s own comments, she also starts each one with the name of the commenter. For example, the business about Code officers pocketing the money for every ticket they write came from Brian Backhaus:
The bit about a stolen bike and bribing her landlord came from Nikkolas Gage:
The milk crates belonged to activist Martin Mashon. His August 27 post might have triggered the other posts:
In O'Boyle's final paragraph, she continues to question Tammie's credibility, defends the contractor and denies that the City has any obligation to help. She also says Tammie didn't follow through on a FOIA request for her records. That was because the City wanted to charge her nearly $200. For her own records.
I have written several stories on Tammie's situation:
Send comments, questions, and tips to stevenrharry@gmail.com or call or text me at 517-730-2638. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a new story, let me know.
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