Hi folks. I wish I had some creative way to start this but the truth is I don’t. So I’ll just say what I have to say. I have gotten such a response from my last article that words cannot express my gratitude, thank you for your support and please, keep seeking the truth. That is all I ask of you, and I really don’t have any right to ask that. You see, I have spent virtually my entire adult life in public service. From the military to law enforcement to county government. That’s really just a fancy way to say that I have made my living off the tax payers pretty much my whole adult life. In my defense, if I deserve any, that is the nature of public service I guess. But if it’s any consolation, it’s not a life of Riley. Bottom line, standing here today, is no different than standing before you many years ago. I work for you. You owe me nothing. I owe you everything. But in the end, if all I have to offer you in return is the truth, I can live with that. Two of my most trusted friends, and you’ll have to trust me, I don’t have many, recently said two things to me. The first said, “why do this? You are committing political suicide. You can’t win, and it won’t make any difference anyway.” That may be true and I thought a lot about that. The truth may be suicide if you live and die by the Unterrified Democrat. However, I now know that many of you, like me, recognize and understand that that newspaper serves one purpose, to advance the agenda of the Ralph and Jerri Voss, not to report the news. Furthermore, I have no political aspirations at this point, it is not about winning or losing and I believe now it can make a difference because I am hearing it and seeing it in you the taxpayers. So with that being said, even if it is true that this is suicide, what does that say about our system of government? Tell the truth and destroy yourself. Okay, because in the end, you are owed the truth from the people you elect to represent you, serve you and protect you. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
I believe the men and women who founded this country believed that, and why to this day, our young people go fight wars and sacrifice everything for that principal. So if I committed suicide here, I did it with a pure heart and a smile, and a hope that maybe, someday, it will make a difference. The other said, I’ll leave you with this thought, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to stand there and do nothing”. I gave considerable thought to both statements. Here is my conclusion. If this is political suicide, and I can’t possibly win, and all I do is destroy myself in the process, then I consider that an acceptable loss, if it does nothing but get you to look a little closer, a little harder, get more involved, and not just accept as true things from those who have something to gain from your compliance or complacency. Arrogance and pride are interesting emotions. I know, because I possess plenty of both. But there is a danger in those emotions. They can consume you, especially if you are entrusted with a position of power.
The purpose of this article, is to give you some examples of how this is happening around you. Russell Scheulen and I pretty much grew up together. I worked side by side with him on his dad’s farm for many years. To this day, our farms adjoin each other and he cuts the hay off mine. I still recall the day I was cutting wood behind my barn, and he pulled up to visit. He said to me that he was considering running for county commissioner, and wanted to know what I thought. I remember telling him then that he had no idea what he was getting himself into, but I encouraged him to pursue it if he felt strongly that he could benefit the county. You may be wondering what this has to do with anything, but you will see later. Much like my relationship with the Voss family, these may seem like personal issues that have no bearing on what is happening here, but you see, they really do. Anyone who tells you that your relationships and life experiences doesn’t impact your decisions, especially in the world of public service, is either lying to you or themselves. This bears on this story, because it is why when the road and bridge incident, and its aftermath, happened, I was stunned and was forced to open my eyes to what had been unfolding for some time, I just hadn’t seen it coming.
This is something I probably should have responded to long ago, I frankly just never saw any point in it until recently. Now that there is a considerable amount of talk about it, and it really bears on my purpose and motivation for publishing these articles. As you may recall, Amanda Grellner and I were criticized in the paper following the Osage Co. road and bridge investigation that led to Danny Foster’s suspension. Ralph and Jerri Voss made it very clear that they did not approve of, nor appreciate, our handling of the matter. Here is the part of the story you did not and you will not read in the U.D.
The Voss’ were not present when Danny began coming into our offices complaining about Elmer Senevey at the mere rumor that he may be running for commissioner. Numerous times Danny would come in and assure us of the horrible fate that awaited Osage county should Elmer get elected. Why he darkened our doorway with this information remains a mystery. Then Elmer actually filed, now it’s about to get interesting.
As you know, Elmer won the first district commissioner seat. Our visits and phone calls from Danny quadrupled with the same message. Elmer then takes office. We both assure Danny that regardless of past issues with Elmer, as a commissioner, he did not nor would he ever have the power to single handedly have an adverse impact on Danny’s employment or job. As is always the case, the commission acts as a governing body, individually they have little if any authority to do anything. Elmer began monitoring road and bridge activity, which as a commissioner he certainly has a right to do. Now enter Russell and Vince. It seems that Elmer was rustling some feathers by visiting with the road and bridge employees. Ms Grellner, more than I, was frequently asked about how Elmer could be impeached. Well, obviously, he couldn’t be, his only crime was wanting some accountability at road and bridge. Russell and Danny, not at all pleased with what Ms. Grellner had to say, decided to go to the Attorney General’s office in order to find a way to get rid of Elmer, only to be told the same thing Ms. Grellner had told them. You see, Elmer was talking to road and bridge employees. Imagine that, a county commissioner talking to county employees, the audacity of it. Eventually, there came a day when Ms. Grellner asked me to talk to Elmer, if for no other reason than to try and restore some peace. So I agreed.
It was at that point that Elmer informed me of some problems and concerns he had from talking with road and bridge employees. He basically said somebody needs to look into what’s going on out there. Based on our conversation, I agreed to talk with the employees, if they chose to. During that initial meeting, there were seven employees present. Some of the complaints were somewhat hard to believe, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know that some stuff you just can’t make up. I subsequently took formal written statements from several of the employees, and reported my findings to Ms. Grellner. She arranged to brief the full county commission on the allegations that had been made as she felt they needed to be made aware of these as well. These allegations included harassment by Mr. Foster along with physical and verbal altercations between employees and Mr. Foster.
I should probably mention at this point that Ralph and Jerri Voss had not been consulted on how to proceed. They also were not present during any of the meetings or interviews. But they were apparently already forming an opinion. I’ll come back to that later.
We briefed the commissioners on what we had learned. Neither Ms. Grellner nor I, then, or even now, assume or profess that any and all allegations were true. But I can tell you that if even a fraction of them were true, then there were some serious problems at road and bridge. At the conclusion of the meeting, the commission unanimously voted to suspend Danny Foster. That was not based on any advice or recommendations from Ms. Grellner or I. The commission thanked us for our input and we assumed we were finished. They even had me brief and question Mr. Foster at the conclusion of the meeting in their presence then commended Ms. Grellner and I for our handling of the situation.
Enter Jerri Voss. Boy, were we mistaken. Within hours of the meeting, Vince Samson was on his way to Jefferson City with Danny to see an attorney, the man he just voted to suspend. Most of you know the story that ultimately unfolds here, but I wanted to share with you some things you didn’t get to read about in the U.D.
The stories that followed in the U.D. would almost have you believe that Ms. Grellner and I sat around the office one day and said “you know, why don’t we go mess with road and bridge today.” They came to us, all of them. I don’t mind doing someone’s dirty work, but I don’t like getting blamed for the dirt when I’m done. A local business man claims that he asked Ralph Voss following all of this what was going on here. He said Ralph’s response was that they couldn’t let Carl and Amanda control the county. Ralph is right, it’s not my or Amanda’s job to control the county, however, it is not Ralph and Jerri’s job either. Another local business man claims Ralph commented about helping Danny get his lawyer to handle this. Fair and balanced reporting right? This may also explain all of the telephone calls I found on Mr. Foster’s county paid cell phone during this time interesting.
Following the state audit, and the inexplicable comments that followed, I went to look at the receipts from the 911 director’s credit card. Public record right? Wrong. I was told that most receipts from 911 and road and bridge were maintained by the supervisors, not the clerk. The two individuals in the county that work directly for the county commission, or more accurately, Russell Scheulen. The rest of us elected officials have to send our receipts to the county clerk and the treasurer. This is the arrogance I’m talking about. It’s the same arrogance that you see if you listen to the county commission meeting from Monday, 19 July, you can hear for yourself the 911 director calling the audit a “sham”, and that she had all the receipts in “her” file “now“, downstairs in her office. Why aren’t they given to the clerk like all the rest of us are required to do? And if you listen to that meeting, please pay close attention to the comments of her mother, the owner of the U.D., who you would think was just there to report, right? This brings me to the most recent incident, and an example of the arrogance that I referred to at the start of this story. It’s the same arrogance that I believed led to the incident that I am about to tell you here.
On Friday afternoon, July 23rd, I had left the office. I hadn’t been gone long when a deputy called and said that Neal Johnson and Russell Schuelen had come into the courthouse to take pictures. I informed the deputy that they were not to be taking pictures in the jail. My phone rings again a short time later, and Russell and Neal had apparently gotten in to the jail via the outside door used by the construction crew, not through the Sheriff’s Department. They were promptly stopped by my deputies, and I responded to the jail. Keep in mind that the jail is still under construction, but most security systems have been installed. We are scheduled to start training on those security systems this week. I will leave it up to you to decide why they chose now to do a photo session to “give the tax payers an update on the progress of the courthouse”. That’s what they told me anyway.
Frankly, I found it a little insulting they thought I would buy that with the primary election right around the corner. There were plenty of things to photograph, both inside and outside the courthouse to show construction progress, without photographing the inside of the jail. Besides, if that were genuinely the reason for being there, why wasn’t I notified, and why weren’t the other two commissioners present. And why now? We are within two weeks of this being completed.
Neal claimed to me that they were only there doing a story on the progress of the construction process at the courthouse. If that were in fact true, where was the story about the courthouse being filled with smoke from diesel exhaust? Smoke so bad several employees had to go home as they were feeling ill? Or where was the story about the day the courthouse had to be evacuated due to a sewer line being cut or the continued interruption of work and court because of noise and dirt and dust. Better yet, where was the story regarding the approximate $6,000 spent to remodel the old 911 office just a year before the 911 director decided she would rather have them located in the new Administration building, a move which cost even more money, an exact amount is unknown and no straight answer seems to be available. An office, which was then occupied by Sheriff’s Deputies, after 911 moved out, and has now been destroyed in the “remodeling” process with no “plans” to restore it. If they’re going to tell the story then they need to tell the whole story.
The next obvious question is why not wait until it’s done and show people their new facility? The point is it would never occur to me to take the news media into another elected official’s office or area of responsibility for a photo op without at least having the common courtesy to ask or notify that office holder. I was told it had been discussed by the commissioners at the meeting, which I knew not to be true, but in order to confirm this I called the other two commissioners and the county clerk to notify them of this incident. Elmer said he did not know this was going to take place, Vince never returned my call.
I wanted to be sure I didn’t overreact here, so I called a neighboring sheriff and a presiding commissioner and told them the story. Turns out I didn’t overreact, both of them found the actions of Mr. Scheulen and the newspaper to be inappropriate.
This may be my last article, it may not, it’s not that I don’t have plenty more to tell you, but it seems they just won’t stop. So neither will I. But I would really like to get back to just being your sheriff. Whether you like me, hate me, or really don’t have an opinion either way, I have not forgotten that that is my ultimate responsibility to you. I don’t have a right to ask anything of you, but I would like to ask all of you for a favor. It’s pretty simple really. The next time someone asks you your opinion of something, tell them, not what you think they want to hear, but what you really feel and how you really think. Tell the truth. You don’t have to hurt feelings or be rude, just tell the truth. It feels pretty good, and it seems to be contagious, and I think that’s a good thing.
Sincerely yours
Carl A. Fowler