As some of you know, there was a rather critical story about the Sheriff’s Dept. and in particular, me, in the U.D. regarding a popular area of the county known as Sestak’s slab. For those of you who are not familiar with the area, it is in the southern part of the county along the Maries River. It is, for lack of a better phrase, a popular hangout. Frankly, it has been since I can remember, having began as a deputy sheriff here in 1988.
In the June 9th edition of the U.D., a local land owner, George Luebbering, complains that the sheriff’s department does nothing to address the problems associated with this area. After the article came out, I contacted and spoke to Mr. Luebbering. Just to clarify now, Mr. Luebbering and I were able to address our concerns and views on the issue and agreed to work on solutions to the problem. I fully understand Mr. Luebbering’s frustration so it’s important to me that people understand I have no issue with Mr. Luebbering. A little communication between Mr. Luebbering and I went a long way toward addressing the problem. Which brings me to my point.
Mr. Luebbering called me on my personal cell phone on Thursday morning after the U.D. came out on Wednesday morning. Mr. Luebbering said he had tried to call me on numerous occasions and I had not returned any of his calls. I asked Mr. Luebbering who he had been calling and he stated Osage Co. dispatch. I was aware that he had called dispatch for me the previous week and had told dispatch he could call me on my cell number if he needed to speak with me as I was under the impression he had the number. I asked him why he did not call me on my cell phone and he stated he did not have the number. That puzzled me because Mr. Luebbering had just called me on my cell phone. He said he had just gotten the cell number from Neil Johnson at the U.D.
As some of you know, I have publicized my personal cell phone number for some time. I do so to insure that you, the people I work for, have a means to contact me. I can not rely on dispatch or anyone else to make sure I get messages. That has been a problem in the past which is why I decided to publicize my cell phone number. For some time now, my cell was listed in an emergency contact section of the U.D. Mr. Luebbering even said to me that my number used to be in the paper, but was not anymore and he assumed I took it out. I did not.
On Thursday, 10 June, I called Andi Rice, the Emergency Management Director/911 Director and asked her if she knew why my cell number was no longer in the paper under emergency contact numbers. She said she did not but would inquire and let me know. She apparently called her mother, Jerri Voss, at the U.D., because she called me back a few minutes later and said, “I’m not getting in the middle of this”. I was a bit surprised because I wasn’t sure what she thought she was getting in the middle of, I was just asking about my cell number being listed under emergency contacts in the U.D. Ms. Rice informed me I would have to talk to her mom.
I called Jerri Voss and asked her why my cell number had been taken out. I’ll spare you the conversation, but it is recorded in case there is a dispute about what was said. If necessary, I can put the entire conversation on this site, so you don’t have to take my word for it, you can hear it for yourself. The bottom line is, Mrs. Voss took my cell number off the list. When I asked her why she would do that, the only answer I got was “why don’t you put it on your website”. I’m really not sure how you are supposed to respond to that, but here is my concern. I made my personal cell phone number available to you because I want you to be able to contact me and speak directly with me if for whatever reason you have a problem or concern that you are uncomfortable speaking about with a deputy or dispatcher. Or as in this case, you feel a deputy is not addressing your concern in an appropriate or timely manner. Yes, I know, that does happen. I work for you. Not Jerri Voss, not the U.D., not the county commission. But for some reason, she does not want you to be able to get in direct contact with me. You have to go through her daughter’s dispatch center. Why? For weeks, even months, my number was listed in the U.D. Then this website is established and all of a sudden, my number is taken out. Why? I think your sheriff meets the definition of a possible emergency contact number, don’t you? She now tells me she will put my number back in if I pay her for an ad. I also find it interesting that she won’t publish my cell number in the U.D. unless I pay her, but Mr. Luebbering got the number from an employee of the U.D.
As for the Sestak’s slab story itself, Mr. Luebbering is quoted as having said Deputy Storey was heard on the scanner Memorial Day saying that it would be “a mess down there and he wasn’t responding”. I obtained a recorded copy of Deputy Storey’s traffic that day and he said no such thing. The recordings speak for themselves. Mr. Luebbering tells me that he only heard a “rumor”, Dep. Storey said that, and had told Neil Johnson such. He is quoted in the U.D. however as saying exactly that. In fact, records show that Dep. Storey responded three times to Sestak’s slab that day. And for the record, pardon the pun, for those of you who read the story, the people arrested on warrants were not arrested by the highway patrol, they were arrested by Dep. Rob Relford and Det. Paul Backues. Mr. Luebbering tells me he was referring to a incident two years ago. Makes you wonder how much effort the U.D. puts in to verifying the information is their stories. But that’s a topic for another time.
In closing, it would seem that Jerri Voss has a problem with this website. If you recall, she brought in her attorney, using a county commission meeting for her forum I might add, and attempted to threaten and bully us in to shutting down. Why? We do not sell ads, though legally we could, and therefore do not compete with her for ad revenue. So why would she be opposed to this website. Is it because now there is another source of information available to Osage Co. citizens other that the U.D. Is it because she no longer has the ability to run county commission meetings? She can no longer go unchecked in her unique way of spinning, twisting, omitting and manipulating the truth so that you are only provided with the information that she wants you to have. The irony, or I guess I should say unparalleled hypocrisy here is that I can’t count the number of times I have heard them condemn the “liberal media”, for their deception and bias in reporting for the purpose of promoting their own agenda. Are you kidding me?
In closing, I will pay Jerri to publish my cell phone number in the paper. I can’t promise you it isn’t going to get buried somewhere on page 15, but it will be in there. For those of you who frequent the website, the number is 573-619-0099. Feel free to share it with whomever you deem appropriate.
Thank you.
Carl A. Fowler