We have seen this before. The newspaper featured one story after another about the firing of City Manager Mark Rohr, almost totally ignoring allegations of conflict of interest against City Councilman Mike Woolston and warnings about Wallace-Bajjali.
The newspaper published one story after another about the cost of the Loraine report, yet barely featured any reporting on what that report included.
Now it has launched another crusade- to label newly-elected Joplin R-8 Board of Education members Jeff Koch and Jennifer Martucci, as well as Debbie Fort, as a voting bloc (where have we heard that before) standing in the way of moving the school district forward by refusing to accept the resignations of board members Mike Landis and Randy Steele and letting the decision on the appointment of new board members fall into the hands of the Jasper County Commission, two of whom are not even from Joplin.
In the Globe's coverage, it has been made to appear that three school board members are holding the district back while the one solitary member who refuses to go along, Lynda Banwart, is given the Joan of Arc treatment.
The Globe reporting fails to mention that Koch, Martucci, and Fort voted for a candidate that had received Banwart's stamp of approval just three days earlier, but Banwart suddenly had a crisis of conscience about the whole process, thought it was becoming too politicized and wanted it to go to the County Commission.
It didn't matter to Banwart that the voters elected not only Koch, Martucci, and Fort to bring change to the school district, but also voted for Lane Roberts, though voters were fully aware that he would not serve, to keep Anne Sharp from standing in the way of that change. It was change that voters mistakenly thought they would be receiving when they cast their ballots for Banwart the previous year.
The Joplin Globe has completely failed to explore that side of the issue, apparently because it owes nothing to the taxpayers of the Joplin R-8 School District and plenty to the self-appointed Joplin Progress Committee/CART cabal that already ignored warnings and saddled us with Wallace-Bajjali and has spent thousands, most of it unsuccessfully, to ensure that the policies of Mark Rohr and C. J. Huff continue to rule the city and the school district, even if Rohr and Huff are no longer there.
Just as disturbing is that the Globe has failed to mention the clear conflict of interest that Jasper County Commissioner and former Joplin Mayor Darieus Adams has if the vote ends up in the hands of the commissioners.
As noted in the May 29 Turner Report:
Banwart and her husband Christopher have a mutually beneficial relationship with Jasper County Commissioner and former Joplin Mayor Darieus Adams going back several years.
Banwart probably has more than 17,000 reasons to want the County Commission to make the choice instead of a school board in which all of those who think like her were either defeated for re-election or quit.
Banwart and her husband raised more than $4,000 for Darieus Adams during his first campaign in 2004 and his re-election campaign in 2008.
When Banwart ran for school board in 2014, her husband contributed $13,400 to her campaign and all of that money went to Four-States Advertising for television ads. Adams is client relations manager for the business, which has since changed its name to Storm Stanley.
Adams and his wife were also hosts for a fundraiser for the Banwart campaign, according to Missouti Ethics Commission records.
County Commission campaigns
When Adams first ran for county commision, the Banwarts were hosts for a social event at their home May 8, 2004, with snacks and drinks, according to Ethics Commission documents. Twenty-six people attended and $1,650 was raised. The Banwarts contributed $1,000 to Adams during that election period.
On February 23, 2008, they were hosts for another "social gathering," collecting $2,475 from 21 participants. The Banwarts contributed $650.
School Board campaign
(From the April 3, 2014 Turner Report)
The $13,400 that Dr. Christopher Banwart gave to his wife Lynda's Joplin R-8 Board of Education candidacy all went toward television advertising, according to her eight-day-before-election report filed March 31 in the Jasper County Clerk's office.
The Banwart campaign spent $13,420.76 with Four-State Advertising, Joplin, for the ads, the report indicates.
And this.
Sen. Ron Richard and his wife, Patti, provided Mrs. Banwart with the use of Fourth Street Bowl and finger foods and soft drinks, valued at $125, the report said, for a mixer March 14. Yard signs were distributed and $925 in contributions was received. Fifeen people attended the mixer.
Hosts for the event were listed as Ron and Patti Richard, Darieus and Theresa Adams, and Dan and Teresa Brothers.
The Darieus Adams for County Commission campaign also contributed $250 to Banwart.
Not one word in the Joplin Globe.
Thankfully, Joplin has other sources of information.
19 comments:
The local elites don't like it when their self-assumed authority is challenged, and Stark was placed and courted to be a mouthpiece for their interests - a role she was far too happy to assume. Worry not, experience shows we'll soon see some additional random lame attempts at smearing Koch and the others, like traffic tickets a la Rosenberg.
The Globe and the self-appointed leaders of Joplin are so stuck in their belief that theirs are the only opinions that matter that they are also oblivious to their own faults, feeling justified in their actions. They label this trio a "bloc" while failing to notice the 7-0 voting that dominated the school board over the course of the Huff era, the kind of democracy associated with dictatorships.
What's been impressive is the extent to which the public has been able to affect things in another direction, in spite of the enormous influence that these leaders possess in the form of money and media. The establishment is going to continue to find itself challenged so long as it remains unable to consider its own faults, but instead pushed forward under the all-too-human coping mechanism of assuming yourself to be always right and those who disagree to be incorrect. You have to undermine others in order to maintain this belief, to protect yourself from the self-realization of flaw. The greater the incongruence between reality and self-image, the more disparate the compensatory response, so you get more overtly aggressive and arrogant behaviors as displayed in recent weeks by Landis, Huff, and friends.
Those who say that they couldn't get their way and went home are correct. They couldn't win the game, so they're trying to take the ball and go home. Pulling on any influence and friendship they can. Think of the celebrity who, when arrested for clear legal violations, pulls out the line: "Do you know who I am?" Same thing going on here. Don't we know who they are? They are very important people! Ms. Banwart is a Dr.'s wife and knows many important people. Don't we know who they are?
Another item of interest is that the "sleepover" at the admin building the night before she was to file for Board candidacy is not Banwart's first slip up. She also, with her family, stayed at the Darieus Adams residence after her house was damaged by the tornado. Anything wrong with that? Nope. She wasn't on the Board at the time. The problem comes now, as that conflict of interest isn't just thousands of dollars in donations. The two families are quite close, so that any appointees by the commissioner are guaranteed to be those picked by Banwart and the JPC/CART group than people truly interested in education. That is where your "bloc" of voters will come from, and they won't be doing the business of the voters. They will be trying to continue to cover up all the misdeeds started by the old Board, CJ Huff, Angie Besendorfer, and the political entities already mentioned.
Isn't Darieus Adams up for reelection in November? I'm pretty sure we will remember this scandal then. And, we will be watching to see who purchases his campaign for him. Or him through his campaign, either way.
@12:11
Not only did they stay together, these two families vacation together. They are very tight. I doubt Adams has the public interest in mind with his choices. Funny that Banwart sat there and said nothing about this tight relationship. I wonder if she got him advertising rights for the bond issue, too? It's rather hard to say since all the old ads seem to have magically disappeared.
I find it odd that Dankelson would dirty his hands in this mess. I hope that he can tell the public just what statutes the new Board members have broken while trying to serve the electorate that put them in office. I'm pretty sure he's got nothing, but he seems to be allying himself with the crew that has, at least on the face of things, thumbed their noses at the electorate and the law. The circle of corruption just spreads farther and farther. I hope it's worth it to him.
Dang, Ms. Lynda! Considering your biggest fear was ending up on the Turner Report and hurting the family business, you sure have chosen a strange path to follow. Now, all you folks out there need to be sure you tell Ms. Lynda just exactly how you feel about what she's doing here, because we sure enough want her to know we are paying attention and her efforts have paid off. She's on the Report and we are taking notice. Whether or not it hurts her precious flow of cash will be hard to determine for awhile, but I for one am pretty dern sure I won't be getting my carpal tunnel surgery done by those folks, no way. They moved across the border to Jayhawker territory so as not to have to pay the same taxes as us small fry. So they can just do without my cash. I'll find some honest doctor, I hope, whose kids will benefit from taxes he pays into the city and state. Yep, you got to admire her for casting her fears aside and jumping right in here feet first. Those must be some mighty strong convictions she has.
I wonder if Lynda Banwart has visited the Confessional yet. I would think that she should if all that praying she does means anything. It could be all for show, about like everything else connected to her. I wish I could say I'm sadly disappointed, but I also knew this is the way she would do things. She has walked roughshod over everyone for as long as anyone can remember knowing her, always making sure her kids got everything, even back in the Catholic schools, and never giving a whit about anyone else's. I'm glad her attitude has finally caught up to her. I hope the consequences do soon, also.
Who..besides Turner has ever been hurt by being in the Turner Report.
How come the Joplin Globe has never done a story on all the physicians and practices such as Ortho Four States that have moved across the state line to Galena, Kansas? What is their motivation for moving to Galena? Is it because taxes are less in Kansas? Even the Red Onion has opened up a Galena location to serve all these doctors and patients coming from Joplin.
Hey, 2:39, have you seen Speck,Besendorfer, Rohr, Huff, Sharp, Flowers, Willcoxon, Sticklen, Steele, or Landis much lately? Hmm...I wonder what happened? How did people get their information? It sure wasn't the Globe.
I wouldn't call all those people hurt so much as I would call them exposed.
Randy, why don't you have editorials ever printed in the Globe?
Why? He has more readership than they do and most, if not both, of their readers read his blog. :)
I no longer subscribe to the globe. Most of neighbors do, they are all retired. They all vote. They complain too, but aren't avid computer or smartphone users. Somehow, they rise above the perceived notion that Joplin citizens are uninformed idiots. I hate not having a local paper, but it's just rubbish.
TO 4 40 They moved to Galena because Kansas has a cap on malpractice lawsuits and they gave them no property taxes for 5 years and the Docs did not like giving Freeman or Mercy a cut for surgery space so they they just built there own Hospital, they are making some big bucks out there hacking people up.
Dusty made a valid point regarding the monetary issue & insurance. The "hacking up" comment was way out of line,in my opinion. I'm not a fan of Dr.Banwarts beside manner or his attitude however he gets an A++++ rating on on the work he's done on a family member. I don't know her,his wife,at all so to attack her on such a personal level,is way out of line!
One more + and I would have been convinced.
Just so you know, Dr. Banwart has the highest incident of infection in his patients of any orthopedic doctor. Hence the reason he wears the space suit. Dusty's comment about the cap on malpractice was on target, they have been sued plenty. Freeman booted these ortho doctors and exchanged them for Mercy docs years back. That made Banwart angry so he went to Kansas and started his own clinic and surgery center. He is still affiliated with Mercy, but he doesn't like to lose. Big ego and all so he showed them by taking business away. Now his wife will show us all and he will lose again.
I was not personally attacking Banwart with the hacking comment, there are 10 other doctors out there slicing and dicing. I am still limping around from my knee surgery I had out there 4 years ago, another Doc told me Grantham got a little aggressive with the laser on my knee. I later found out he had operated on 16 knees before noon on the day I got hacked. He probably got most of them fixed right that day.....I guess.
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