UPDATED: Anne Sharp was not late in filing 8-day-before-election report

I received a phone call this morning from the Jasper County Clerk's office and was told that Anne Sharp's eight-days-before-election financial disclosure report had arrived by courier this morning at the Carthage office, which is where the campaign finance documents are kept.

She told me that the report was stamped Monday, March 30, meaning that it had been filed on time. I verified that when I stopped by the Carthage office just before noon.

Apparently, the report was filed on time, but was not sent with the courier on Tuesday. When I talked to an employee at the Carthage office Tuesday afternoon, I was told that I should check with the Joplin office. I did so and was told that a courier had been sent to Carthage. I drove to Carthage that afternoon and discovered that no Joplin R-8 financial disclosure reports had been received at the elections office.

I called the Carthage office the next afternoon (Wednesday) just before closing and was told that there was still no Anne Sharp disclosure report.

It was at that point I decided to go ahead and write the post since two days had already passed since the deadline.

I was told this morning that no courier had been sent from Joplin to Carthage Wednesday and that the report had arrived five days before the election.

While it certainly would make it easier in this day and age if Missouri would require all candidates to file their reports online instead of giving them a choice (Melinda Campbell, Nancy Good, and Jeff Koch file their reports online, while Jennifer Martucci and Anne Sharp are filing theirs on paper.), the rules were followed and my original report was wrong. I apologize for the error.




Joplin R-8 Board of Education President Anne Sharp, who has come under fire in recent weeks for crossing ethical boundaries by using teachers and a professional development session in a campaign video, had still not filed her eight-days-before-election report as of the end of the day today, according to an employee at the Jasper County Clerk's office.

The report, which was due by the end of the day Monday, is supposed to include information about all money Sharp has received, and all expenditures, including how much she paid the local public relations firm which shot the controversial video, and how much she paid the Joplin Globe for Sunday inserts, which were distributed far outside the Joplin R-8 School District.

Campaign reports were filed on a timely basis by Sharp's opponent, Jeff Koch. Her other opponent, former Joplin Police Chief Lane Roberts, is not required to file a report since he will not spend more than $1,000. Roberts has said he will not serve if elected.

Also turning in the financial disclosure reports on a timely basis were the three candidates for the unexpired one-year board seat- Melinda Campbell, Nancy Good, and Jennifer Martucci.