Alexandria, Indiana is a quiet town that used to be very proud of its communal roots, now drawing national headlines for all the wrong reasons. It started with a sick child, and turns into a municipal crisis that comprises of toxic water, dubious financial transactions, breaching of public records and a government that seems to better serve itself, than its citizens. In the middle of this downfall is the character of Mayor Todd Naselroad who is allegedly generating broad criticisms in this so- called Mayor Todd Naselroad Scandal that continues to generate widespread concerns.

 A Sick Baby and a Denial City

It all changed dramatically when an infant in Alexandria was hospitalized with documented contact with E. coli poisoning having drunk town tap water. Residents were shocked but this was to be followed by worse. Rather than prompt action or transparency, Mayor Todd Naselroad glossed over concerns saying that the citizens did not need to worry about the safety of the water which was said to be safe.

Nevertheless, the accounts presented by official lab reports were different. Chlorine concentration as an essential component of disinfecting water oscillated to 0.029 mg/L in certain regions, which is way below the 0.2 mg/L recommended by the state. Nevertheless, despite this data, the officials of the city further bet on denial. Even shocking is when, in one viral video, an IDEM employee called a 0.09 mg/L level of chlorine figure was “good” which contradicted both science and regulation.

A 10Million Road and No Answers

As the citizens were boiling their water and seeing their loved ones getting sick, a totally different, but shocking in its own way scandal had appeared. A road project which was initially budgeted at slightly over 1 million dollars had risen somewhat inexplicably to 10 million dollars. The spending in the city was scrutinized and forensically, it was found that it was spending more than 2.3 million in vague administration and planning expenses with suspicions of some water, sewer, and stormwater funding being stolen.

Dwellers wondered how a mega infrastructure project could have ballooned in costs in the time of a water crisis. How come there were no controls? The hands of responsibility were directly pointing at the mayor office itself and this escalated further to create the Mayor Todd Naselroad scandal and brought legal and ethical concerns because the person who turns out to be involved in this is an elected official.

Citizen Voices These Public Records Blockaded

With outrage traveling across the town, people requested to be shown documents under social records requests in the Indiana public records act in a bid to uncover the truth. All they got instead was quiet. They include Mayor Naselroad, Water Superintendent Mark Caldwell and Clerk-Treasurer Darcy VanErman, who did not comply, holding back chlorine logs, internal emails, and water quality reports.

Council meetings were turned in to battlefields. Whistle blowers were silenced. People were fired. It was no longer transparency that was not there but it was now deliberately closed down.

Lives affected (Compromised Health)

This is not merely a political scandal, but a health disaster to a public. Illness has now been reported by dozens of the residents. One of these women got sick so bad that her adult son had to come back home to Kentucky to look after her. One of these residents had days of internal bleeding. Lab tests showed that some of the community members were infected with E. coli and H. pylori which was also associated with dirty water to consume.

Whistleblower Retaliation Corruption at a New Level

A whistle blower named Peters was a local business owner, SCROOGE LLC, and made the city official authorities discover that there might be an issue going on with the water crisis. Soon afterwards he was a target. His payment processor, Checkout.com, closed his account, and forced him into a punitive 25 percent reserve.

Peters retaliated by suing a sum of 10 million dollars on the basis of whistleblower retaliation and economic sabotage. His case is likely to attract further focus to the leadership shortcomings in Alexandria.

It can be concluded that Alexandria deserves better.

The scandal in the case of the Mayor Todd Naselroad is not a leadership failure alone – it is a betrayal of trust of the whole community. A child poisoned. A duped people. Millions misspent. And a mayor that is dead-set to resign.

In Alexandria, the water poisoned–but the government is too, out of the blue.