Kevin Kramis isn't sure he'd go back and make the same choices earlier this year.
Kramis, a longtime volunteer in Garden City, exposed improprieties that led to resignations from three city employees earlier this year. Kramis said the whistleblowing was the right thing to do, but the personal losses he's experienced since then are difficult to bear.
"Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut," he said.
His volunteer roles with the city's Downtown Development Authority, Garden City Community Coalition and the annual Santaland Parade have all ended. Kramis said he co-chaired the parade for about 20 years.
"It’s because I’m not trustworthy," he said. "That’s what I was told."
Kramis said he worries if his treatment will impact future potential whistleblowers.
According to Kramis, he'd been talking with his close friend Dan York in April when he first learned of possible wrongdoings. Garden City was paying for York, the city's communications director at the time, and two subordinates to attend a conference in Florida in May 2022.
The only problem was that every in-person aspect of the conference, put on by website designer CivicPlus, had been canceled as indicated in an April 19 Facebook post by the company.
Kramis said York told him he had no plans to inform the city of the cancelation and was still heading to Florida along with two employees at the city's expense. According to receipts obtained by Hometown Life through a Freedom of Information Act...
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