Date: 8/23/2010
I was in St. Louis from Wednesday of last week until Saturday along with our entire staff. We took in a Cardinals ballgame, saw the new Julia Roberts movie, ate way too much good food and did a little team building.
When I'm gone that long, I tend to lose touch with what has been happening in Hermann. The best way I've found to catch up on the news and hearsay is to meet with some of the locals at any one of several good coffee shops here in Hermann. So that's just what I did early this morning.
Elmer, Cletus, Barry and Thurston, all four loyal Hermann Hearsay subscribers, were already at Hardee's when I walked in. They waved me over. After querying me about my activities in St. Louis, they started telling me about recent news and hearsay in Hermann. We must have gone through three pots of coffee!
The most interesting bit of hearsay they passed on to me was the rumor about one of the county commissioners filing an ethics complaint against another commissioner (or commissioners). They weren't real clear if the complaint named just one commissioner or two. I checked out their information at www.mec.mo.gov/ , but no information was posted on the Missouri Ethics Commission website as of 10 a.m. this morning. I'll keep checking.
The group had heard various stories about the ethics complaint. Elmer and Barry had heard that the complaint was filed against Jerry Lairmore for calling Matt Penning a "lieing [expletive]" a few weeks ago at a road department meeting. I told Elmer and Barry that I thought that outburst might have been a flagrant violation of good manners, professionalism and 'The Golden Rule' but that it might not fall under the jurisdiction of The Missouri Ethics Commission. Cletus and Thurston had heard that the ethics complaint was filed against Ron Jost and Jerry Lairmore for voting NOT to bid out the county's tire and tire service business this year. That sounded more credible to me.
I'll have to do some investigating and report back to you later. If anyone out there has the factual information, I hope you will comment. I'm thinking my ol' buddy A. Nonymous probably knows something he'd like to tell all of us about. Perhaps I can get a response from Northern District Associate Commissioner Matt Penning who is rumored to have filed the complaint with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
