Globe wins city document fight, deliberately hid documents that made Mark Rohr look bad

When former Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr stood before the Joplin City Council recently, ripped the council members who fired him for their corruption, indicated that God would pay them back in the next life for voting against him, and decried the "good old boys" who were running the city government, the Joplin Globe knew this was not the first time he had publicly made such accusations against those who dared to stand against him.

The Globe had the information, but for some reason chose never to share it with its readers.

During the entire time the Joplin Globe has been fighting a successful battle to force the city to release documents related to Osage Beach lawyer Tom Loraine's ethics investigation, the newspaper has been sitting on documents that could have shed light on the problems that have been facing the city the past several months.

The Turner Report has learned that Globe Editor Carol Stark has possession of documents that show that former City Manager Mark Rohr ran into City Council efforts to fire him at nearly every one of his previous stops, that he was consistently accused of bullying, and that when city council members stood in his way, he defended himself by claiming he was fighting the good fight against  the "good old boy network."

Globe sources indicate that the problem has been that Carol Stark has a tendency to get too close to administrators who make a show of taking her into their confidence, referring specifically to Rohr and Joplin R-8 Superintendent C. J. Huff. Information that could put any of her favorites into a bad light has a hard time finding its way into the newspaper and when it does, it is generally watered down.

The Globe had documents showing that Rohr almost immediately began having problems after he became city manager of Punta Gorda,  Florida. Minutes of a Punta Gorda council meeting show City Councilman John Errett saying he "could not recall when he has been more convinced that a mistake was made in the selection of a city manager." Errett referred to Rohr as a "draconian, dogmatic dictator."

Errett and another councilman attempted to have him fired, but withdrew the motion after providing Rohr with some suggestions on ways to improve his personal relations with employees, including controlling his temper.

A second effort to fire Rohr in Punta Gorda also fell short.

In a newspaper interview that the Globe also had access to, former Punta Gorda City Councilman Bruce Thompson said, "I think he was one of the worst city managers we ever had. It goes to his style of operation. He doesn't want anyone to tell him what to do. He doesn't like anybody to challenge his authority. I worked in public life all my life. You don't treat employees as harshly and nastily as he did.

Rohr left Punta Gordon in 1998, telling a newspaper he had found "fraud" and "corruption" in the city. Efforts to get rid of him were "purely political," he said, "because I was taking on the good-old-boy network."

Newspaper reports from Rohr's time in Newton Falls, Ohio, show that he fought with the mayor and a former city councilman. Rohr charged them with corruption, the same charge he leveled at Joplin council members. Just like in Joplin, Rohr never came through with any evidence that any corruption was taking place. The Globe was aware of the Newton Falls, Ohio, information, information that could have shined a different light on the Mark Rohr controversy, but sat on the information.

The Newton Falls newspaper said the feud began when the former city councilman was looking into complaints from department heads that they were being mistreated by Rohr. The complaints were similar to ones that were heard in Joplin. The Globe had this information.

When Rohr left Newton Falls to take another job, he left a divided city, with petitions supporting him circulating around the city, just like in Joplin.

In the last job Rohr had before coming to Joplin, in Piqua, Ohio, Rohr's first years went smoothly, until people were elected to the City Council with the specific purpose of getting rid of Rohr, who was accused of overspending and mistreating employees.

The documents that were in the possession of the Joplin Globe and Editor Carol Stark have already been used by the Globe...in 2004 when Andy Ostmeyer, who still works for the newspaper, did a thorough and well-written investigation of the man who was about to become Joplin's city manager.

At that time, Mark Rohr's background was news.

That was before he became Carol Stark's friend.