Editor's note: This story has been updated to include more details about the financing of the proposed treatment plant.

Indiana’s public access counselor, caught in the middle of a dispute between the mayor of Warsaw and a former city council member, accused the folks who posted a story on the Warsaw Community Facebook page of taking his comments out of context.

Former city councilman Kyle Babcock sought input from Public Access Counselor Luke Britt two months ago after Mayor Joe Thallemer declined to release a draft version of a plan for a rate structure for sewer bills that would help pay for the $31 million reconstruction of the city’s sewage treatment plant.

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The mayor declined to release the draft report, saying it was too preliminary and that they were waiting on financing details to be finalized.

Construction bids for the project differed by $5 million. The city was also waiting on final word on plans to secure low-interest financing. Both factors would have made the project appear to be more expensive in the original draft, Thallemer said.

In his letter, Britt said that denying copies of preliminary draft reports is not an uncommon practice because draft reports are often subject to change “and there is a danger of confusing the public” if the draft is significantly changed.

At the same time, Britt suggested public officials should release draft reports and mark them clearly as a “working copy.”

In a phone call Friday, Britt said public officials are not required to release such documents and that it was “the mayor’s choice.”

Britt’s letter was dated Nov. 2.

According to Britt, Babcock asked for the documents in early September. The city released a final report in late October. City council began reviewing it on Monday and is expected to vote on the proposed rate hike on Nov. 19.

Warsaw Community, which has been attacking Thallemer for months and urging fellow Republican city councilman Ron Shoemaker to run for mayor, posted a summary of the letter on Monday.

In the post, Warsaw Community, which operates without openly identifying who manages it, used artwork with the phrase “Guilty Again” and suggested that Thallemer had been sanctioned/reprimanded, which is not true.

The post also includes three quotes in ways that made it look as if Britt suggested the paperwork be released when it becomes available, and that withholding the information would be “perceived as obfuscation.”

After seeing the post, Britt said he contacted Babcock and asked that he talk to whoever was behind the post  and ask them to stop taking content from his letter out of context.

He told city officials he was incensed that somebody twisted facts for political leverage.

“That really did bother me – the fact that somebody took those quotes and called it a sanction or a reprimand – I don’t have the authority to sanction. I don’t have the authority to reprimand,” Britt said Friday.

“Coloring it that way,” he said, was an “intellectually dishonest way of presenting that opinion.”

Babcock has said he is not involved with Warsaw Community, but he does operate several websites that focus on politics and sports. He has a Facebook page called Online Warsaw.

Babcock ran for mayor in 2011 and lost to Thallemer.

Babcock was asked for comment about Britt’s reaction. He said he was “happy the state of Indiana reviewed my complaint against Thallemer and I’m satisfied with the results. What other media outlets say or do is out of my control.”

Babcock and Chad Zartman have both been critical of Thallemer and often videotape city council meetings.

Zartman said he’s still involved with Warsaw Community, but did not write the post and declined to say who did.

Thallemer said he’s disturbed by “the ongoing negative, distorted postings without ever any offer of alternative solutions.”

“We’re in the middle of deliberating on a very important rate increase and I want it to be accurate,” Thallemer said. “I feel fully protected by what the statute allows us to do.”