Coyote TV - High Desert Advocate

    Two things became very clear to us when we called Ely City offices this week seeking a copy of Steve Marich’s resignation letter.
    The first was that neither City Attorney Kevin Briggs or City Clerk Jim Alworth really cared about the public’s (meaning the people who pay their salaries) right to know and secondly both men really, really don’t like George Chachas.
    We kind of expected the first thing.
    The public can be a bit intrusive and bothersome while those two pillars of city administration struggle to do the peoples work.
    The second thing, about hating George Chachas did take us a bit off guard. Now a person can hate whoever he wants we just didn’t expect them to share it with us at that particular time.
    We after all really weren’t interested in Mr. Chachas.
    While he has provided us more than his share of head lines, he wasn’t the issue, Mr. Marich was and still is.
    Yet both men refused to volunteer anything about Mr. Marich.
    Mr. Alworth even neglected to mention that Mr. Marich was signing the checks during Mr. Chachas’ short lived tenure as mayor.
    One would think that finding out an accused embezzler was actually signing city checks might have diverted Mr. alworth attention away from George Chachas, perhaps to the point of checking the city’s accounts.
    However Chachas derangement syndrome appears to be an all consuming passion so that nothing anyone else does can compare with George Chachas’ continued existence.
    Now we know Mr. Chachas. We know him well and we can understand how sometimes he can rub one the wrong way. But for all his faults George Chachas has never been accused of stealing.
    Mr. Marich is probably much easier to get along with than Mr. Chachas and if given a choice most people in ely probably would have preferred to be stuck in an elevator with Mr. Marich than Mr. Chachas.
    But if the allegations are true, Mr. Marich committed the worst kind of thefts. He violated the trust of his friends and neighbors and family and colleagues.
    Two of those colleagues and perhaps friends were Mr. Alworth and Mr. Briggs. However it seems as though Mr. Marich’s alleged misbehavior at the place of his employment has yet to prompt either man to check the city’s records or their back pockets.
    Instead it is George Chachas that captures their imaginations.
    If this were junior high school it would be funny.
    In the real grown up world it is pathetic.