Former League City official: My resignation had nothing to do with Mark Rohr

Former League City, Texas, Assistant City Administrator David Benson, who resigned recently, posted the following comment on the article in which his departure was noted:

I just became aware of this post and related comments earlier this week and feel it's important that I let you know my choice to leave League City's employ had nothing to do with Mark Rohr's hiring. If it did, I wouldn't have given notice in a manner that keeps me in League City past Mark'ss arrival (during the three weeks I'm to work for him, I plan to do everything I can to foster success for him and League City). 

Beyond that, I would never make such an important life decision based on what people say about someone on the Internet, because it's always possible that folks can get things wrong (as an example, the individual who speculated that I was disappointed in not being selected for the job is incorrect -- I didn't apply for the job, and so I would have been very surprised to have been selected).

 I'm not here to engage or provoke anybody; I just don't want my decision to be misinterpreted as any kind of reflection on Mark's pending arrival. I wish him and League City all the best. And as someone whose family comes from places like Carl Junction and Quapaw and Picher (a generation or so back), I wish the same for the people of Joplin as you continue recovering from the horrible tragedy of 2011. Good luck as you go forward.

Bloc of one opposed to Rohr in League City

Though the original decision to hire former Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr as the city manager of League City was unanimous, Rohr lost one councilman by the time the formal decision was made:

League City City Council on Tuesday voted 7-1, with Dennis OKeeffe opposed, to formally appoint R. Mark Rohr as its new city manager. Rohr, who previously served as city manager of Joplin, Missouri, will replace Mike Loftin, who resigned in October.

No word has been received as to whether O'Keefe is being labeled "a bloc of one" by any know-it-alls in League City.

Mark Rohr to Houston Chronicle: If you can handle the Joplin Tornado, you can handle anything

In an interview in today's Houston Chronicle, former Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr, who will start as the city manager of League City March 31, said League City will be in a better position because he is there: 

Rohr cited his experience in economic development and propelling the rebuilding of Joplin after the E5 tornado swept through the city in May, 2011, destroying a third of the property and killing 161 people.

Rohr said when he left office 92 percent of the homes had been rebuilt or were in the process of being rebuilt, and 90 percent of the businesses were back on track. In addition, he said the city still had $190 million in aid to spend.

"League City may not have a natural disaster - hopefully - but it will be in a better position by having me to manage it," Rohr said. "I can be a manager under difficult circumstances and manage well. You can't imagine the disarray and anxiety in circumstances when a third of your city is destroyed. If you can handle that, you can handle any circumstance that comes your way."

Video- Kim Seavy to Joplin City Council: You people disgust me

Kim Seavy begins shouting at the Joplin City Council at about the 30-minute mark in this video.

Mark Rohr: I did not beat my wife

A December 29, 2012, report of a domestic disturbance at former Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr's home appears to be one of the items explored in the nine pages of investigator Tom Loraine's report that not have been revealed to the public.

That call is explored in an article by reporter Debby Woodin posted late last night on the Joplin Globe website:

The domestic disturbance call was made to police at 2:35 p.m. on the Saturday in 2012. The police responded to what an officer described in the report as a “possible physical disturbance.”

One of Rohr’s stepdaughters had called the police, saying Rohr and her mother were arguing and her mother yelled to call 911.

Police reported that Rohr’s wife, Lois, told them that she and Rohr had argued. She is quoted in the report as telling police “It was stupid, we were yelling and I screamed ‘Call 911’ out of anger.” She told the police there was no violence, the report states. Police officers noted that they saw no marks to indicate that she had been hit.

An officer took Rohr aside and spoke with him. Rohr told the officer that one child in the house had hit a younger child, leaving a mark on the younger child’s back. “Mark got onto his stepson, and his wife got mad at Mark. Mark and Lois began verbally arguing,” report reads. It also states that Rohr said he did not hit his wife.

The officers said they then spoke more to Rohr’s wife. She told them “she felt stupid for what she had done due to Mark’s job,” the report reads. “Lois insisted nothing physical happened and no threats were made.”

The officers asked to look at the young son’s back and noted a “small, red mark.” The boy did not seem to be bothered by it, police noted.

“Due to all the statements given it was determined no action was needed to be taken,” noted one of the officers in the report.

The Joplin Globe and the coverage of the Mark Rohr investigation

The firing of Mark Rohr remains the big story on page one of the Joplin Globe on most days, but the Globe seems to be missing the story.

At the top of page one of Thursday's edition, the headline reads "Letter cites advice on firing." The story's lead- "It was special investigator Tom Loraine who advised Joplin officials in the firing of Mark Rohr without cause, a letter written by Loraine shows."

While the headline and lead are accurate, it is once again a case of the newspaper burying the lead and perhaps pushing its own agenda.

The cost of the investigation, which has been the subject of much coverage, comes directly as a result of something serious Tom Loraine discovered about Mark Rohr, something which was more worrisome even than the apparent conflict of interest of City Councilman Mike Woolston or the completely blown out of proportion accusations against Councilman Bill Scearce.

In fact, that is spelled out clearly in reporter Debby Woodin's story:

Loraine, in the Feb. 20 letter, said that as he took depositions in the probe that was to primarily focus on ethical questions regarding Councilmen Bill Scearce and Mike Woolston and an ote from Rohr's desk, "Mr. Rohr's conduct loomed larger than those issues originally outlined concerning Messrs. Scearce and Woolston."

Loraine's contention that Rohr's problems, whatever they were, were far more serious than those alleged against Scearce and Woolston is buried on the page 10A jump, in the eighth paragraph of the story.

That is what is called burying the lead.

The Globe has steered away from whatever it may be that served as a cause for Rohr's firing and instead concentrated on the 10 missing pages and its own "heroic" efforts to make those 10 pages public.

While I, too, think that the pages should be made public and that they will eventually become public, the Globe has spent little time looking into the important revelations that were included in the open session of the report.

Loraine believed the city should dump master developer Wallace-Bajjali. And there is certainly enough in that firm's history, which those read the Turner Report or who have done their own research know, while those who rely on the area's newspaper of record have not heard a thing about it. The firm has been riddled with bankruptcies, been investigated and fined by the SEC, had tor return $1.2 million to investigators, and have been accused in lawsuits of fraud and operating a Ponzi scheme.

Not one word of most of that has ever been in the Joplin Globe.

Woolston's actions were also questionable to say the least. After the Joplin Tornado, public officials should have known better than to get involved in anything involving real estate in the affected area.

Those findings have been almost completely ignored because of the Globe's fixation on Rohr and what appears to be an obvious effort to discredit Tom Loraine.

It also appears to be an obvious effort to affect the outcome of the April 8 election.

Thoughts on Mark Rohr and corruption on the Joplin City Council

Mark Rohr has been one busy ex-Joplin city manager.

Let's review. In the month since the Joplin City Council fired him by a 5-4 vote he has done the following things:

-He promised to expose corruption on the City Council.

-He called the five council members who fired him liars and damned them all to hell. (He's the one who said they would get their judgment in the next life.)

-He came close to tears (that seems to be a requirement for the people the media have described as heroes of the Joplin Tornado) and shamelessly brought his children into his speech (another thing that those same heroes of the Joplin Tornado seem to like to do).

-He was hired as the new city manager of League City, Texas.

Since Mark Rohr's firing, I have watched the coverage, both online and in print and it has been, for the most part, unabashedly pro-Rohr. In its editorial pages, the Joplin Globe has done everything but tell voters that the two council members who were with the majority and fired Rohr should be voted out of office (and I am sure that editorial is coming).

In their now-independent blogs, former Globe bloggers Anson Burlingame and Geoff Caldwell have referred to the five council members as "The Feral Five," and "The Bloc of Five" with Burlingame insisting that the pages of the Loraine investigation that we have not seen have people describing Rohr as a bully. How he knows this, I have no idea, but that accusation is probably in those pages. Though it does not appear their blogs receive a great deal of traffic, both men are staples on the Globe's editorial page and Burlingame, in particular, has made it clear he intends to influence the outcome of the April elections.

The Globe has painted the five council members as the ones who are responsible for not releasing the entire report, even though the last time I looked there are nine council members, all of whom know what was included in the report...and Mark Rohr knows what is in the report, as well.

The Joplin Tri-State Business Journal also included several pages in its most recent edition that appeared slanted solidly on Rohr's side.

And those media have made Rohr's characterization of the five who fired him as being a part of a good old boy network that is intent on stopping progress from coming to Joplin, sound like a fact, instead of what is, a talking point planted by Rohr to influence coverage from people who were already inclined to be on his side.

Some questions we should consider:

-Where is the corruption that Mark Rohr promised to reveal? It was a great sound bite, but he has not produced any evidence that there is widespread corruption on the Joplin City Council. An allegedly stolen sticky note is not corruption, its elementary school name calling. Unless, of course, Rohr's corruption allegations are centered around his (successful) attempts to woo Globe Editor Carol Stark into fighting his battles with Councilman Bill Scearce.

-Why are the five council members being described as part of a good-old-boy network, when the most secretive group involved in the April city election, the Joplin Progress Committee, has received contributions from many of the major power players in the city- and none of their contributions are going to anyone who voted to fire Mark Rohr. Apparently, they don't make good old boys the way they used to.

-Why is the media acting like Wallace-Bajjali has disproven the accusations in the Loraine report? The last time I looked, all they did was provide their own version of the facts and did not disprove anything.

-Why is the media ignoring the bankruptcies, fraud accusations, and securities violations, as well as numerous lawsuits involving Wallace-Bajjali. As far as I can recall, it has never been brought up in any of the local media except for a paragraph in the Globe, which quoted Mark Rohr as saying none of it amounted to anything.

Some final thoughts

If the Joplin Globe is successful in its legal efforts to force the city to release the complete report, this is what I expect will occur:

-The report is not going to be what the Globe, Anson Burlingame, or any of the other Rohr supporters would expect. The council members who voted to fire Mark Rohr were not taken by surprise by the reaction. Rohr's influence over the Joplin Globe is well known. Two council members, Trisha Raney and Jack Golden, voted to fire Rohr, knowing full well that it could cost them their council seats. That is not the way good old boys usually operate.

-Bullying may have been a factor in Rohr's dismissal, but it was not the deciding factor. I would say there were things that occurred that the five council members saw as Rohr abusing his office. We probably will wonder why the other four did not join them in their vote. The allegations could have prevented Rohr from landing the League City position and could have landed the city in a lawsuit. When Rohr left Piqua, Ohio, he successfully sued someone who accused him of wrongdoing. I reported the following in the June 3, 2007, Turner Report:

The Family Abuse Shelter of Miami County, Ohio, is $3,000 richer, thanks to a settlement of a libel suit brought by Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr against a Piqua, Ohio, businessman who Rohr says defamed him while Rohr was Piqua's city manager.

According to an article in the March 29 Dayton Daily News, Rohr had initially won his lawsuit against Gustin, but the jury voted not to award him any money. A retrial was ordered, but will not be held thanks to the settlement.

Rohr sued Charles "Mo" Gustin after Gustin claimed police cruisers had been to Rohr's house three or four times to check out domestic abuse complaints;

Rohr said his lawyer, Grant Kerber of Troy, suggested the donation. Rohr liked the idea.

"My sole objective was to send a message that you can't go around saying untrue things about someone without repercussions." Rohr said.

Rohr said he thinks he made his point.

Complete video- Mark Rohr's farewell speech, Joplin City Council meeting

Mark Rohr: Loraine report was filled with "gossip, innuendo, and baldfaced lies"

Fired City Manager Mark Rohr told the Joplin City Council and those attending the city council meeting or watching it on television that his firing was a conspiracy.

Rohr referred to the five City Council members who fired him Feb. 4 as "corrupt" and "evil."

Rohr criticized the report that was compiled by Osage Beach private investigator Tom Loraine as being filled with "gossip, innuendo, and baldfaced lies."

When Rohr completed his presentation, about half of the audience began applauding and within seconds were giving Rohr a standing ovation.

The former city manager said the presentation he was giving did not center on the Loraine investigation as much he had originally intended. That was likely a reference to Rohr's new status as incoming city manager at League City, Texas. Prior to that, it was expected that Rohr was going to mount a battle to regain his job in Joplin.

What else he could have added to his comments on the Loraine investigation is unclear. While Rohr dismissed the quality of the report, he offered no specifics as to what he found wrong with it. Though the council, by an 8-1 vote, allowed Rohr to exceed the normal five minute time limit for speakers, Rohr did not go into detail.

He began his presentation with a listing of accomplishments that had taken place during the decade he was Joplin's city manager, including downtown redevelopment, the financial stability of the city, a reduction of violent crime, the neighborhood improvement program, construction of a water park, the city's overall appearance, landing a minor league baseball team and, of course, the work that has been done since the May 22, 2011, tornado and the "city of Joplin has established a national, even worldwide reputation for getting things done."

Rohr recalled the speech he made one week after the tornado at Cunningham Park when he said, the best way to honor the 161 who lost their lives was to channel energy into the rebuilding of Joplin. "bigger and better than it was before the storm."

Rohr's voice began to halt as he recalled the promise he had made during that May 29, 2011, speech. "I gave my word to Joplin citizens that I would be totally committed to that task. That is what we have done until that process was interrupted on February 4."

Video- Itemized bill from ethics investigation provided to Joplin City Council members

A KOAM report KOAM TV 7

KOAM/Fox 14 coverage- Mark Rohr gets new job

KOAM TV 7

Turner Report promise- No lawsuits, no Sunshine Law requests, why not give me the Mark Rohr report?

As you can hear on the accompanying video, the Joplin Globe and KSN are pushing for the release of the complete Tom Loraine investigation that led the Joplin City Council to fire City Manager Mark Rohr. The Globe is suing, KSN is filing a Sunshine Law request (I am sure KOAM is doing something, too.) The Turner Report is joining the game, but I am taking a different approach. No threats, no public posturing (and no chance of success), I want to encourage anyone who is filled with public spirit, has the information, and wants it to get out, send it to me. You can send it to my e-mail, send it to me by Facebook, or slip it under the windshield wipers of my car. If you want to send an e-mail with some of the highlights of the 10 missing pages, feel free to do so.

KSN video- Mark Rohr accepts League City, Texas position

League City on Rohr's firing: That's just politics; he was already a candidate for our job.

As some have surmised since former Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr was announced as a finalist for the League City city manager post, the application was in the Texas city council's hands well before the Joplin City Council voted 5-4 to fire Rohr.

It all worked out for Rohr, who was hired by a unanimous vote today.

The tumult leading up to his firing didn’t phase the League City Council.

“That’s politics,” Councilman Todd Kinsey said. “He was already a candidate for our city prior to that happening.

“(It) wouldn’t surprise me if that council found out about it and that could’ve been the catalyst for his release.”

Kinsey said he believes Rohr is a perfect fit for League City.

“He has a wide breadth of knowledge in finance, economic development, infrastructure and utilities,” Kinsey said.

“Most importantly he is proven in building partnerships, which is of critical importance in this day and age.”

Kinsey also praised Rohr’s leadership to rebuild Joplin after the 2011 tornado, but still kept the city’s debt at a minimum.

“His track record of leadership and his vast municipal experience will compliment our city staff’s expertise and council’s vision for the city,” Mayor Tim Paulissen, said.

Rohr should feel comfortable in League City since the Galveston newspaper describes the town as having a "sometimes-dysfunctional council."

Rohr is expected to start the job within the next month.

Texas town gives roar of approval with approval of Rohr as city manager

Media reports indicate that fired Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr has emerged as the choice of the League City, Texas, City Council for its vacant city manager post. The vote was unanimous.

Rohr was announced as one of the four finalists last week, made the first cut to two candidates, then was selected for the position.

The Joplin City Council voted earlier this month, by a 5-4 margin, to fire Rohr, who had been city manager for the past decade.

Video- KOAM report- Joplin investigator bill to remain secret

KOAM TV 7

Woolston: I want to make the entire report public

During a news conference this morning, Councilman Mike Woolston said he had filed a Sunshine Law request for the complete ethics report compiled by Osage Beach attorney Tom Loraine.

If he gets it, Woolston said, "I intend to make the report public."

Woolston, a former Joplin mayor, said he feared "the credibility of the City Council has suffered. It is essential that the credibility of the City Council be restored." Woolston said his request also asks for transcribed copies of all witness interviews.

"I also have concerns related to the termination of our city manager. Ultimately, I hope the people will be told why Mr. (Mark) Rohr was terminated."

Woolston said he did not want Rohr's firing to be the focal point of the city for the next several months, at a time when recovery from the May 22, 2011, tornado is ongoing.

The original scope of the Loraine investigation was supposed to be concerns about the ethics of Woolston and fellow councilman Bill Scearce. The report suggested that Woolston should refrain from involvement in real estate concerns or resign from the council.

The investigation morphed into the dismissal of Rohr.

"I am not happy with the result or the quality of the investigation," Woolston said.

Video- Debate emerges over Joplin City Council investigation bill

KOAM TV 7

Video- Mark Rohr finalist for League City, Texas, city manager post

A KODE report

Complete video- Last night's Joplin City Council meeting