Monday, September 07, 2015

All Globe editors, columnists think Woolston being railroaded

Does anyone really believe that more than two weeks have passed and the Joplin Globe has not received a letter to the editor or a "guest column" criticizing City Councilman Mike Woolston or supporting the results of the recently-issued state audit?

Let's take stock of what we have seen since the audit was issued last month.

-A rambling dissertation by guest columnist and former blogger Anson Burlingame urging that the audit be challenged and asserting that Wallace-Bajjali could have succeeded if it had not been for sinister forces (the city council members who voted to fire City Manager Mark Rohr) who kept the company from doing its job. He never mentions that Wallace-Bajjali had never successfully completed any other job.

-A guest column by Rohr in which he also says that those same sinister forces stood in the way of Wallace-Bajjali's success. (It has to be true. Mark Rohr said it and he staked his reputation on Wallace-Bajjali.)

-A prominent Sunday column by Editor Carol Stark, in which she criticized the state auditors for not being forthcoming in discussing their audit with her reporters. This means, of course, in this alternate Stark reality that the audit is flawed, in the same way that the Loraine Report was flawed. That way, of course, is that it did not reveal the results Stark and her friends among the unelected power brokers in Joplin wanted.

-Two letters attacking the audit, both of them, if I remember correctly, from Dianne Slater of Joplin.The most recent letter was included in Sunday's Globe under the headline "Don't Rush to Judgment in Woolston Case."  In the letter, Slater refers to the "flawed" Loraine Report, and includes this statement- "A first-year law student reading the witness statements in that report would immediately see that the witnesses were led by Loraine- just one of many issues surrounding that 'investigation.' "

I would say most first-year students would say Thomas Loraine did a masterful job of unearthing information, considering that he did not have subpoena power and did not receive cooperation from many he wanted to interview, including David Wallace, Charlie Kuehn, and Carol Stark.

And still not one letter, not one guest column even questioning Woolston or demanding that the state audit result in some action concerning his documented activities over the past couple of years has been seen in the area's newspaper of record. Of course, people who think that way may have long stopped reading the Joplin Globe.

(Later today, new information on how the Joplin Globe under Editor Carol Stark has allowed its favorites to heavily influence editorial coverage.)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe the Globe needs to be audited.

Anonymous said...

10:12 AM: As our host previously said, "The people of Joplin should sue the Globe for non-support".

Anonymous said...

Why isn't anyone talking about Rob O'Brian and the Chamber? Why is Woolston taking the fall for everyone? Woolston is certain shady, but the audit is pretty clear the Rob brought us Wallace and he continued to lie about it.

Steve Holmes said...

I could be wrong, but I don't believe the Globe has run an Info Poll on the topic of Woolston, either. That would probably be very embarrassing to the paper.

Anonymous said...

It is my understanding that the first contact between WB and the City of Joplin was initiated by Rohr when the issue of what to do with Joe Becker stadium first came up prior to the tornado. Contact was first made by the former Parks Director, Chris Cotten, who has since resigned and left Joplin in June following the state audit. Consider this....WB are from Texas, the team that came to Joplin as the Blasters originated in Texas, Rohr is now employed in Texas. And consider this....Rob O'Brian presented a misleading feasibility study on the baseball team and stadium project to the City Council and the public and did so under the direction of Rohr and certain City Council members including Woolston. There were several individuals who knew the feasibility study was flawed and misleading and even communicated this to the City Council.....it didn't take a state auditor to figure that one out even though they did as well.

This is just one more example of the corruption that was running rampant within our City and its leadership. Rohr, Woolston, O'Brian, and others associated with the Chamber and CART all should be held equally accountable for their complicity in this affair.

Anonymous said...

12:32 PM: I'm giving the Chamber a decent interval to show O'Brian the door, especially with people being on vacation, sending their kids to school in the new year, etc. right now. If they don't by sometime in September, I and I expect others will start pressuring the Chamber members we do business with to not renew their memberships.

Anonymous said...

The Glob has its slant and Turner has his slant. I don't take either seriously.