Globe fails to run Burlingame's latest attack on council

Whether the editors at the Joplin Globe rejected his blast against the five City Council members or just had not published it yet and he became impatient is not clear, but Anson Burlingame's latest post debuted on his blog and not in the pages of the area's newspaper of record.

Burlingame addressed the issue at the beginning of his post:

Note: This blog was originally submitted for publication as a guest column in the Globe. Lacking such publication in the newspaper I now post it as a blog to reflect my continuing concerns about how Joplin city government is being grossly mismanaged by the Bloc of Five, council members Scearce, Rosenberg, Golden, Raney and Colbert-King.

The rest of the post features Burlingame's strongest commentary to date on the five City Council members who fired City Manager Mark Rohr:

This city is being mismanaged, grievously, by the City Council, meaning members Scearce, Rosenberg, Golden, Raney and Colbert-Kean. They are using their majority power to terminate a great leader and city employee, implication of gross misdeeds by one member of council and all sorts of other underhanded attempts to stall and even thwart the rebuilding effort ongoing in Joplin for almost now 3 years and previously approved by council.

Burlingame offers his remedy for the city's problems:

All five of those members need to be DISMISSED, run out of office, condemned by the public and all other legal forms expression of outrage for their actions. This is not democracy in action as Americans expect it. It is tyranny of the majority, a majority of good ole boys (and girls) that think they can just ride roughshod over a very angry city.

If the Joplin Globe truly vetoed Burlingame's guest column offering, it is a step in the right direction for a newspaper that has taken a hit with its coverage of city and Joplin R-8 issues.

The Globe also had to use considerable space today to counter a rumor that Burlingame helped promote that City Councilwoman Trisha Raney, one of Burlingame's Bloc of Five, is not a city resident. Though the Globe reporting totally put it to rest, I have a feeling the issue is not going to go away.

Burlingame appears to be easily swayed by those who project themselves as strong leaders. He has been wooed by master developer David Wallace (he has written about Wallace guiding him through the process) and he appears to have his views on local education spoon fed to him by C. J. Huff. 

While I would disagree with Burlingame's apparent stamp of approval of Wallace and Huff as strong leaders Rohr, from all appearances was a strong leader, particularly in the days immediately after the Joplin Tornado, but I still have a hard time believing that any group of "good ole boys" as Burlingame and others have characterized the five City Council members would have been naive enough to think that there would not be serious repercussions to firing a man widely viewed as a hero. Whatever was in the pages of the Loraine report that were not revealed to the public was enough in their view to merit his immediate dismissal. If the decision had been based on political considerations, Rohr would still be city manager because it was obvious that Rohr supporters were going to use the firing to attempt to keep council members Trisha Raney and Jack Golden from being re-elected.

When the content of those missing pages is finally revealed, we should find out more about why Tom Loraine's bill went over the $45,000 limit by so much. This has been the part of the story that has bothered me the most. An educated guess would be that once the Rohr information comes to light, whether we agree with it or not, we will have a better understanding of why the report cost so much.

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

Complete video- Last night's Joplin City Council meeting

Joplin Mayor after firing of Mark Rohr: The city is moving forward

(From the City of Joplin)

Following the Joplin City Council’s termination of City Manager Mark Rohr at the Special Council Meeting held February 4, Mayor Melodee Colbert-Kean reassures the citizens that the City is moving forward and work will continue as usual.

“This was a personnel matter, and we cannot comment on the termination because it is confidential,” said Kean. “Business at the City will proceed as usual. I and the other members of the Council have full confidence in the City staff as they remain diligent to the business and projects we have before us.”

The City Council appointed Assistant City Manager Sam Anselm to serve as Interim City Manager during this time.

Things I'm Thinking About, January 7

My Favorite Mayor- I have always had a great deal of respect for Joplin Mayor Melodee Colbert-Kean, but she ranks right up at the top of my list after her statement at tonight's City Council meeting. "I never read the Globe," she said after someone mentioned a Joplin Globe article. Of course, I don't jknow if she is a Turner Report reader, but you would think someone with that much intelligence would have to be.

Minor League Baseball- The idea of a low cost, family-friendly activity, which is exactly what minor league baseball is, coming to Joplin is an appealing one. After listening to the presentations at tonight's hearing on the proposal to bring the El Paso Diablos to Joplin and checking on the team owner's background, I would say this is a good thing for Joplin. But the $4 million investment the city will have to make on Joe Becker Stadium is a concern. I would like to know more about that. While this certainly seems more promising, it is hard to forget the minor league hockey fiasco of a few years back.

Don't Take the Business Community For Granted- Concern about some of the actions taken by the Joplin R-8 Board of Education, primarily out-of-control spending, appears to be having an effect on some Joplin business leaders when it comes to this year's board race. I will be writing more about it tomorrow, but I have talked to a few business leaders who said C. J. Huff and the incumbents on the ballot should not take them for granted. One said, "A lot of the things you are writing about are things that were already known by some of us. We support the school district, but that does not mean we are going to go along with everything that the current leaders want."

Debby Woodin and Downton Abbey- People are still commenting to me about how strange it is for the Joplin Globe to have one of its top reporters, one of the few left who have established solid reputations as journalists write a page one story about Joplin area fans preparing for the return of the PBS series Downton Abbey. Wake up, Globe. It brings credence to that old saying- If it happened in Joplin, it's news to the Globe.