City of East Wenatchee City Council Boondoggle
Boondoggle is a pretty funny phrase, but when attributed to politics it really is no laughing matter.
A Boondoggle, according to online sources like politicaldictionary.com and history.com, is a wasteful, unnecessary, or fraudulent project funded by taxpayers. Typically initiated for political, corporate, or personal gain.
This couldn’t describe what’s happening in East Wenatchee better when it comes to their new banner policy antics.
Near the end of 2025, the East Wenatchee City Council attempted to change their banner policy specifically to exclude Pride banners, provided by the NCW Equity Alliance, to hang in June.
At the start, some of the council stayed quiet and did not make public comment on the issue when confronted with the reality of their actions being intentionally exclusive.
Councilperson Ettore Castellente was personally offended (at first) by the idea that he wanted to include father’s day in the banner’s INSTEAD of the pride banners, as bigoted. He told Source One in an email as the person who requested the banner policy review his “intent was not political or social.”
“I’m serving in a position that is non-partisan. I don’t know why someone is turning this into this,” Castellente said. “This is something that needs to be reviewed. I can’t help that this has been turned into a social cause on my part. I will explain very clearly what my intent is. I have no hidden agenda. No one has the right to put a label on me.”
Such righteous words for someone who very quickly changed his mind just a few months later (see below). He even went so far as to say in an email to The Wenatchee World before the workshop, “one of the ideas I plan to share with fellow council members is that I want to suggest expanding the short list of categories of typical banner applications for display — not excluding a category that appears on the current policy list.”
But Councilperson Christine Johnson tipped her hand during a workshop in September 2025. She is quoted by the Wenatchee World as saying, “Now, I don’t have a single issue with equity and diversity, not one whatsoever, and most of those people(referring to complaints about the pride banners in June), I don’t believe do either, but they do have a problem with the inclusion of the Pride flag on that. I’m just going to come out and say I disagree with it too, not because I have a problem with equity and diversity or with the Pride flag. I don’t think they go together, and I do not believe that public funds should be used to hang those.”
In response to the comment about “public funds” a local East Wenatchee resident request information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from the City of East Wenatchee events department, which controls the placement of the banners and decorating downtown. Now the problem that was uncovered after this request, is the fact that the events department did not have a budgetary line item for labor or cost of banners.
It turns out that many non-profit organizations, like the NCW Equity Alliance, are the ones that pay for the banners. So the only cost to the city is the placement and removal of the banners. The same cost as any banner to hang or be removed.
So Councilperson Johnson ASSUMED the city was paying for the banners or was attempting to infer that it was a cost the city should not bare. This will be important later.
After some time, the events department returned the cost of the placement and removal of banners approximately $2,000 for change overs. In response to this, another local non-profit Out NCW, offered to pay for the placement in June should the City of East Wenatchee determine that the cost should be the barrier to hanging the banners. This offer was made by Stella as the Secretary/Treasurer at the October 21, 2026 East Wenatchee City Council Meeting. At the conclusion of which, their own lawyer told them that they could be opening themselves up to liability. In response they paused banner applications and resumed workshops about the issue after they had already approved the city’s 2026 annual budget.
The city council meeting had a majority of supporters for rainbow banners in June both speak and tell the City Council what that representation meant to them. And yet… after the overwhelming support and offer to take on any financial cost, Councilperson Ettore Castellente, updated his stance on Diversity and Equity. He stated, “After giving full attention to all of these collective views, I decided that I would now remove the Equity/Diversity category from the pre-approved list,” in an email to the Wenatchee World.
In January 2026 they met again, to restart the conversation about the banner policy and discuss with their lawyer how they could change the banner policy and make sure they won’t get sued. Stella was there to witness, since public comment wasn’t available and caught over 30 minutes of video. Most of which was Councilperson Taylor Stimmel complaining and attempting redefine Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion(DEI) to *actually* mean it was exclusive of religion. Then when Councilperson Matthew Hepner helped out by explaining that DEI is about what you’re born as, not what you choose for yourself(like religion). “I can convert to Judaism,” Hepner said. “But I can’t convert to being African American.”
Stimmel laughed, agreed, and then said, “But you could identify as one.” Please see the video below of that interaction. And you can watch the full unedited 36 minutes of that meeting regarding the banners here.
That workshop, was followed by another workshop where they determined the policy was now ready to pass. It is a stripped down version, no where resembling what the previous policy used to be. It now has cancelled banner applications, minimizing the acceptable list to City Sponsored Events, and specific Federal Holidays. Excluding Juneteenth.
This policy now lands the burden of the cost of banners completely on the shoulders of the tax payers and the $0 set aside in the current 2026 budget to pay for it.
It really is interesting to hear from Councilperson Johnson that she doesn’t believe that “public funds should be used to hang those,” in regards to Pride banners, but she would much rather add a line item of nearly $150,000 instead? Let’s do the math!