Published by
Dick Schaefer, Contributing Writer and Part-Time Investigative Reporter
I was reminded of a line in one of
William Shakespeare's plays as I observed the procedings at this morning's weekly County Commission Meeting .....
"Me thinks thou doest protest too loudly!"
That was my take-away from this morning's Gasconade County Commission Meeting when Sheriff
Randy Esphorst came before the County Commission meeting in regular session to protest being audited. Sheriff
Esphorst complained about having to subject his department to a financial audit by a private firm contracted to do these audits by the Missouri State Auditor's Office. Audits of Gasconade County offices are conducted every four (4) years by state law.. The last two audits of the county were performed during 2002 and 2006.
Commiserating together with Sheriff
Esphorst and also loudly protesting about the state's auditing process were Presiding Commissioner
Ron Jost, Southern District Associate Commissioner
Jerry Lairmore and County Clerk
Lesa Lietzow. The ONLY other elected county official present at this morning's County Commission meeting was Northern District Associate Commissioner
Matt Penning. Notably Commissioner
Penning DID NOT PROTEST. A careful observer would have concluded that
Penning's silence and unwillingness to loudly protest the financial auditing of county offices spoke volumes!
In his article dated 6/24,
Jeff Noedel, Publisher of CNL reported as follows:
"Associate County Commissioner
Jerry Lairmore (south district) objects to the auditors' meeting with each of the county's three commissioners individually, in private.
Lairmore said in today's meeting that the auditors ought to interview the commissioners together, in open meeting."
Noedel made no comment about
Lairmore's protestation on the matter of meeting with the auditors individually and in private. I must say, however, that I found it at least curious that
Lairmore would protest so loudly to meeting with the auditors individually and in private. Again, Commissioner
Penning DID NOT PROTEST. Evidently Commissioner
Penning has no reservations about meeting with the auditors individually and in private.
Seated from left to right: Jeff Noedel, Jerry Lairmore, Ron Jost and Matt Penning.
Wait a minute! Has Jeff been elected to the County Commission? Aren't members of the press supposed to sit out in the public seating area? (I apologize for the poor quality of this photo. It was taken with my Nokia cellphone. You see, here at Hermann Hearsay, we just can't afford a nice $3,000 digital camera!)
There were, of course, numerous other matters discussed during the meeting, but I will leave it to the other reporters attending the meeting to report to you everything else that was discussed. All Hermann news organizations were represented at this morning's meeting:
CountyNewsLIVE.com (Jeff Noedel),
HermannNews.com (Anna Wiegenstein),
The Hermann Advertiser-Courier (Don Kruse) and
Hermann Hearsay (Dick Schaefer).
I am proud to say that a nice photo of
Larry Miskel,
Mike Jacquin and
me discussing a matter of interest during one of the many lulls in a typical
Jost-led meeting appeared on
CNL. (Next time I'll wear a clean, crisp white shirt and one of our classy
HH silk neckties!)
Performance Metrics:
Total # FREE Subscribers: 000,340
Total # Premium Subscribers: 000,028
Total # Ultra Premium Subscribers: 000,003
Total # Platinum Lifetime Subscribers: 000,003
Subscribers Currently Online: 000,080
New Visitors Currently Online: 000,031
Alexa U.S. Traffic Ranking: 311,902
Total # Subscriber Telethons, Raffles & Bake Sales: 000,000
Reciprocal Websites:
Non-Reciprocal Websites:
