Mehlville Fire Board Breaking News

This coming Tuesday, a meeting will be held by Missouri State Attorney General Chris Koster at the AG's office in Jefferson City. Several people will try to persuade the the AG to ignore the State Auditor's Office that said the state law was violated when the Mehlville Fire Protection District Board of Directors submitted a tax rate of .593 when they had just proposed a major tax decrease to the voters in April. The .593 is actually a few cents higher than last years tax rate and about four times what is allowed by Missouri statute after passage of April's ballot measure. Should the Attorney General's Office find the district broke the law, our fire district will have a budget shortfall of 12 million dollars next year.
All of this comes because of the politics of the Mehlville Fire Board and Mr. James Stonebraker, a Republican activist from St. Louis County. The board had the authority to lower its own tax rate but instead sought legislative approval and went before the voters. This earned them much praise in conservative circles around the state. All the while, they spent lots of money with their co-conspirator, the Call Newspapers, which not only passed the unnecessary ballot measure but helped bring voters to the polls for their candidate Director Bonnie Stegmann.
Numerous people will be heading to Jeff City Tuesday, among them State Senator Jim Lembke(R), and State Representatives Walt Bivins (R) and Mike Leara(R). Rep. Leara controls the district's employees' pension funds. Rep.Walt Bivins was the author of the bill that allowed the district to put the issue on the ballot. Sen. Jim Lembke pushed hard for its passage after not being for it but then getting pressure from Stonebraker and the Call Newspapers! None of these three are lawyers but they will try to defend Arron Hilmer's irresponsible decision to put a ballot measure before the voters with only the advice of a political activist. They will ask that AG Chris Koster to ignore the law and speculate as to what the voters really wanted. I voted against the measure in April but I think the voters wanted a tax decrease not a tax increase. Get yourself some popcorn. This will be fun to watch.

Catching Up in South County

I know, I'm tardy. Accept my apologies. I went fishin.

Things are heating up in the area races. It looks like the Dems are going to capture the presidency and the Missouri governorship.

Saturday was National Come Out of the Closet Day. I told myself that if Peter Kinder had the courage to announce his true sexuality, I'd vote for him. Since that didn't happen, I'll stick with the Democrat in the race. Dr. Sam Page is a better choice, but I was prepared to reward courage.

I see the Campisi campaign has been busy posting their signs all over the public roads. This is a good sign for his opponent. Signs don't mean much anymore. They help a little with name recognition, but Campisi already has that. By putting them on public property, the county should take them down soon. Also, by not putting them in yards, it looks like they haven't been working very hard. This doesn't look good for John Campisi.

To the question I received on the last post about John Wayne Tucker, he was a losing candidate in this last Republican primary for the 3rd congressional district.

And to the query about Jim Lembke's irresponsibility, I could go on for days. How about trying to impeach a judge for a fellow politician's daughter? Trying to end temporary transplants with animal organs. How about tax credits to people who could send their children to schools that advocate overthrowing the United States. Abolishing the tax assessors office, is this a mature way to govern?

Has anyone seen Mike Leara's arrest record?