Exposing Corruption, Injustices and the Truth.
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| O'Fallon Watchdog |
Exposing Corruption, Injustices and the Truth.
| -----Original Message----- From: PeterCantwell@aol.com [mailto:PeterCantwell@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 5:44 PM To: Dan McAteer Subject: Re: Recycling pickup Yes Dan, I will retire (I like to call it 'redirect my talents') July 1, 2004. I'm out of town until next week, but I am looking to find a good day to buy you breakfast. When I return, I'll work on it. regards |
Anonymous attacks on Morrow are coward's work
By John Sonderegger
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/16/2007
Now I know I've been picking on O'Fallon Mayor Donna Morrow a lot lately, but not today.
I don't know why she lost her job shortly before she was elected mayor in April 2005, but she also lost her health insurance.
Some cities in St. Charles County, such as St. Peters and St. Charles, include elected officials in benefit packages for
regular employees.
But O'Fallon does not cover the mayor. So Morrow needed to find a way to pay for her post-employment COBRA benefits
after the election.
She accepted what she considered a loan from Tom Wilkerson, owner of the Trigg Banquet Center, who paid her monthly
$280 COBRA bills. Morrow said she was unaware that Jim Blechle, owner of the O'Fallon Plaza shopping center along Main
Street, also contributed a few hundred dollars for her coverage.
The checks went directly to her former employer, a marketing company called the Gabriel Group.
Morrow says she paid off a final loan of $3,525 — about $600 more than the amount listed by the Missouri attorney
general's office, which investigated an ethics complaint about the issue.
The state ethics commission dismissed that complaint late last month.
Morrow says the entire process was like a kangaroo court, considering that the complaint was filed in February of last year
and that a state law shielded her and the public of the accusations and whoever made them. That law since has been
changed.
Making matters worse, the state tried to get her to pay a $500 settlement and to admit she broke a city rule forbidding the
acceptance of gifts of more than $25.
She refused to settle and asked for a hearing before the commission. Hearings were scheduled but postponed and never
held. Then the issue was dismissed.
Morrow says she has spent $2,500 in legal fees and that she intends to have her attorney press the commission to release
the name of the person who made the original complaint against her.
"Where are my due process rights?" she said in an interview with the Post-Dispatch. "I want my right to face my accuser."
Morrow also has received scurrilous letters and messages accusing her of breaking the law, a la Shawn Brown. Of course,
this slop was sent to her and her assistant, Carl Maus, anonymously. They received 12 such letters, many of which implied
she was going to jail, before it was reported that the ethics complaint had been dismissed.
Since then, she has received two more letters. One had a hangman's noose and gallows, with the words, "Got Jail," as in
"Got Milk." A letter received Thursday said, "Ethics will only embarrass you, the jailhouse will come from your corruption."
This whole situation smells. I know St. Charles County has a lot of big-time developers who didn't want to see her become
mayor. She has her suspicions that she lost her job because someone, perhaps a developer, wanted her fired.
"They told me they thought I was going to win the election and they didn't think I could do both jobs," Morrow said.
And, she said, she did not know when she ran for mayor that the city wouldn't offer health insurance to whoever was
elected. After she lost her job and was elected, she was in a difficult spot without health insurance. So she accepted the
loan to pay for it, and then came the ethics complaint. Then the word went out that Morrow was being investigated by the
Missouri attorney general's office. To me, it all seemed orchestrated.
Keeping ethics complaints secret and shielding the accuser while the elected official is being publicly embarrassed in
anonymity, and some by not-so-anonymous people, is flat-out wrong.
In a debate before last April's municipal election, then-City Council President Peter Cantwell mentioned Morrow in the same
breath with Brown, the former St. Peters mayor who resigned after he pleaded guilty of soliciting and accepting a bribe.
Brown is serving an 18-month sentence in a federal prison.
At the debate, Jeff Yelich complained that Cantwell had failed to find money to hire four more police officers and ignored a
speeding crackdown in his subdivision.
In reply, Cantwell said Yelich "is an angry, single-issue candidate. Sound familiar? Like Shawn Brown in St. Peters, and
he's going to jail. Like Donna Morrow here, and she is still under investigation by the attorney general."
I thought that was way out of line. At the time, Morrow said, "Mr. Cantwell has a history of accusing me of howling at the
moon and everything else." Cantwell lost the election, incidentally.
I think it's time for those who may think they have something to say about Donna Morrow to step up and say it. And give
your name.
If not, shut up.
Watchdog Response: Interesting development. Morrow and Cantwell started out as political enemies. Then they were
political allies for a while then they went back to being enemies. I bet before to long they will be old chums again. Peter it
looks like your political future is history. When the homebuilder rag won't carry your water anymore you know your a goner
or should I say "extinct". If I recall correctly the treasurer 's signature on Peter's July 15th report in 2006 didn't look at all
like signatures on all of his other reports. Probably doesn't mean a thing. However if Peter is behind the attacks. I wonder
if anonymous attacks was one of the talents he was speaking about in his e-mail below to former aldermen Dan McAteer in
2004?
By John Sonderegger
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/16/2007
Now I know I've been picking on O'Fallon Mayor Donna Morrow a lot lately, but not today.
I don't know why she lost her job shortly before she was elected mayor in April 2005, but she also lost her health insurance.
Some cities in St. Charles County, such as St. Peters and St. Charles, include elected officials in benefit packages for
regular employees.
But O'Fallon does not cover the mayor. So Morrow needed to find a way to pay for her post-employment COBRA benefits
after the election.
She accepted what she considered a loan from Tom Wilkerson, owner of the Trigg Banquet Center, who paid her monthly
$280 COBRA bills. Morrow said she was unaware that Jim Blechle, owner of the O'Fallon Plaza shopping center along Main
Street, also contributed a few hundred dollars for her coverage.
The checks went directly to her former employer, a marketing company called the Gabriel Group.
Morrow says she paid off a final loan of $3,525 — about $600 more than the amount listed by the Missouri attorney
general's office, which investigated an ethics complaint about the issue.
The state ethics commission dismissed that complaint late last month.
Morrow says the entire process was like a kangaroo court, considering that the complaint was filed in February of last year
and that a state law shielded her and the public of the accusations and whoever made them. That law since has been
changed.
Making matters worse, the state tried to get her to pay a $500 settlement and to admit she broke a city rule forbidding the
acceptance of gifts of more than $25.
She refused to settle and asked for a hearing before the commission. Hearings were scheduled but postponed and never
held. Then the issue was dismissed.
Morrow says she has spent $2,500 in legal fees and that she intends to have her attorney press the commission to release
the name of the person who made the original complaint against her.
"Where are my due process rights?" she said in an interview with the Post-Dispatch. "I want my right to face my accuser."
Morrow also has received scurrilous letters and messages accusing her of breaking the law, a la Shawn Brown. Of course,
this slop was sent to her and her assistant, Carl Maus, anonymously. They received 12 such letters, many of which implied
she was going to jail, before it was reported that the ethics complaint had been dismissed.
Since then, she has received two more letters. One had a hangman's noose and gallows, with the words, "Got Jail," as in
"Got Milk." A letter received Thursday said, "Ethics will only embarrass you, the jailhouse will come from your corruption."
This whole situation smells. I know St. Charles County has a lot of big-time developers who didn't want to see her become
mayor. She has her suspicions that she lost her job because someone, perhaps a developer, wanted her fired.
"They told me they thought I was going to win the election and they didn't think I could do both jobs," Morrow said.
And, she said, she did not know when she ran for mayor that the city wouldn't offer health insurance to whoever was
elected. After she lost her job and was elected, she was in a difficult spot without health insurance. So she accepted the
loan to pay for it, and then came the ethics complaint. Then the word went out that Morrow was being investigated by the
Missouri attorney general's office. To me, it all seemed orchestrated.
Keeping ethics complaints secret and shielding the accuser while the elected official is being publicly embarrassed in
anonymity, and some by not-so-anonymous people, is flat-out wrong.
In a debate before last April's municipal election, then-City Council President Peter Cantwell mentioned Morrow in the same
breath with Brown, the former St. Peters mayor who resigned after he pleaded guilty of soliciting and accepting a bribe.
Brown is serving an 18-month sentence in a federal prison.
At the debate, Jeff Yelich complained that Cantwell had failed to find money to hire four more police officers and ignored a
speeding crackdown in his subdivision.
In reply, Cantwell said Yelich "is an angry, single-issue candidate. Sound familiar? Like Shawn Brown in St. Peters, and
he's going to jail. Like Donna Morrow here, and she is still under investigation by the attorney general."
I thought that was way out of line. At the time, Morrow said, "Mr. Cantwell has a history of accusing me of howling at the
moon and everything else." Cantwell lost the election, incidentally.
I think it's time for those who may think they have something to say about Donna Morrow to step up and say it. And give
your name.
If not, shut up.
Watchdog Response: Interesting development. Morrow and Cantwell started out as political enemies. Then they were
political allies for a while then they went back to being enemies. I bet before to long they will be old chums again. Peter it
looks like your political future is history. When the homebuilder rag won't carry your water anymore you know your a goner
or should I say "extinct". If I recall correctly the treasurer 's signature on Peter's July 15th report in 2006 didn't look at all
like signatures on all of his other reports. Probably doesn't mean a thing. However if Peter is behind the attacks. I wonder
if anonymous attacks was one of the talents he was speaking about in his e-mail below to former aldermen Dan McAteer in
2004?
| Updated Watchdog Response |
Updated Watchdog Response: The O’Fallon Watchdog has obtained a copy of an e-mail (see below) that is relevant to the
Mayors Ethics complaint. The e-mail is from Rick Fischer who is the former special council to the city of O’Fallon and a definite
insider of the Morrow administration. It was sent to Mayor Morrow and Jane Voss of Scoop publications and contains 13 serious
questions that from what we understand the Mayor and Jayne Voss has failed to address. If the O’Fallon Watchdog finds that the
Mayor and Jayne Voss has the courage to address these questions we will certainly post them on this site.
Mayors Ethics complaint. The e-mail is from Rick Fischer who is the former special council to the city of O’Fallon and a definite
insider of the Morrow administration. It was sent to Mayor Morrow and Jane Voss of Scoop publications and contains 13 serious
questions that from what we understand the Mayor and Jayne Voss has failed to address. If the O’Fallon Watchdog finds that the
Mayor and Jayne Voss has the courage to address these questions we will certainly post them on this site.
| -----Original Message----- From: Fischerllc@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 10:35 PM To: dmorrow@ofallon.mo.us; scooppublications@charter.net Subject: blatant public comments Dear Mayor and Jayne: I plan on talking about the recent developments in the ethics complaint that was filed against you. Some of the issues I will be raising are set out in the questions below and if you would like to provide your comments please feel free to do so. We may be taping as soon as Friday so a quick response may be necessary. 1. Why did Tom Wilkerson ask a group of area business people to help chip in to pay this cost with out mentioning it was a loan? 2. Why did Tom go to Jim Blechle to "get their stories straight" as was reported in a Journal article? 3. Why wasn't Jim Blechle informed this was a loan and has Tom or the Mayor paid him back? 4. Why did Tom tell various people these payment were "secret" and that the Mayor did not know who was paying? If the payments were secret (which is also stated in Pokin's article) how could there be a loan? 5. Outside of the business people Tom asked to chip in, why did Tom tell other trusted friends that this was done as a favor not, as a loan? (The list of people contains several names.) 6. I was personally present when Tom talked about these payments and Tom made it clear that this was a favor and not a loan. Was Tom lying? Why would he have lied about this? Am I lying? 7. Jayne, why would you fail to address any of these issues in your article? 8. If there was nothing to hide why were the payments made by money orders and kept secret? 9. Am I one of the three realistic options of who may have filed this complaint as I have been told? If so, will my "blatant public comments" about this on the radio mean you will feel free to name me? 10. Both of you have accused the person who filed the complaint of lying, being cowardly, being evil etc. Please tell me what was in the complaint that was untrue? Please tell why the complainant is evil? 11. Have either of you posted comments on a chat site anonymously? 12. Let's assume that the complaint stated "Tom Wilkerson is paying for the Mayor's health insurance. Tom has indicated he is doing this as a favor. The Mayor has not reported this payment." Is any of that untrue? 13. Mayor, there has been talk that you are putting together a legal defense fund to go after your accuser. Let's assume you are successful and the complainant's name is released to the media. Let's also assume the complaint was similar to what is stated in paragraph 12 above. Since your previous comments will now be publicly linked to this person, yet the complaint is in fact true, will your legal defense fund be used to pay for an attorney to defend you against a defamation lawsuit from the complainant? Will this fund also help pay for any suits against The Scoop? I look forward to your reply and if you would like to talk about this in person please call me. Rick Fischer |