Serving all the communities of the Buckeye Lake Region

Resignations make watchdog’s day





Editor:

If you didn’t attend the Kirkersville Council meeting January 7th, you missed one of the most eventful public meetings I have ever attended! Popcorn and a big foam finger (index finger) would have been appropriate at this meeting!

At the start, the mayor announced the resignations of THREE members…members of the Royal Order of the Good Ole Boys (GOBs) that is!!! Gone are Council members Jamie Cloud and Bennie (Jim) Evans. Bennie Evans was the former mayor and is the Licking County Rehab Inspector who was giving county rehab jobs to his son-in-law (who was a Kirkersville Council member) and also inspecting the jobs that his son-in-law was doing through a construction company that Bennie Evans previously owned but whose daughter now owns! Did you get all that?! To sum it up…NEPOTISM at its finest!

Also gone is GOB Zoning Chairman Mike Cloud (husband to former Council member Jamie Cloud) who we learned at this council meeting was also the Kirkersville Police Photographer! Yep…the former Kirkersville Kops had so much going on that they needed their own photographer and had issued him an I.D. badge! I hope the photographer had sense enough to photograph whoever walked off with the evidence because it was announced that some of it is GONE!

The mayor announced that money that had been kept in the evidence room (by the former police department) in amounts totaling OVER $700 is MISSING!!! This comes as no surprise to me since I suspected there was a problem all along with the former mayor and former police department. As I have said before, it is my belief that whenever a public official doesn’t want you to have public records it’s usually because they have something to hide. It will come as a surprise to me if they DON’T find anything else missing while they are investigating this crime.

Oh, yes, speaking of crime…It was again mentioned that former police Chief Robert Chamberlain left the village of Kirkersville with village property such as his personnel file and evidence cd’s (video tapes of traffic stops) and can’t be reached. Village solicitor Debbie Kenney said they could either file criminal or civil charges. Please!!! Is this really a ‘civil’ matter? If anyone else had taken village property, would the former Kirkersville Kops have filed CIVIL charges on them?

The new Fiscal Officer (Metheny) gave her report at this council meeting without the assistance of former GOB Clerk/Treasurer Johnny (Bob) Adkins. Prior to leaving, not only did Adkins pay council members two months early, now it is reported that he OVERPAID Kinder Environmentalist (sewer plant operators) $4750.00!! Ms. Metheny caught the overpayment (two checks of $4750 were issued in January of 2008) and was able to get the money back from Kinder although he said he had no record of one of the two payments. However, the checks in question did apparently go through Kinder’s bank. In addition to the overpayment, Adkins had been paying Kinder IN ADVANCE of the work being completed!

During public poll, I got the opportunity to ask Johnny (Bob) Adkins (who was sitting in the audience) his response to overpaying almost FIVE THOUSAND dollars of the tax payer’s money. He responded by saying, “NO COMMENT.” But he didn’t stop there. He continued by saying that I put everything in the paper and, “there’s an explanation but I’m not about to sit here and give it.” It must not have been an explanation worthy of putting in the paper!

Including savings on office supplies and other village necessities, Fiscal Officer Metheny has already saved the village about FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS in the short time she’s been on the job. Just a short time ago, the former GOB’s claimed that the village couldn’t afford a fiscal officer! But since Ms. Metheny has already saved the village as much as half her yearly salary, I repeat…they couldn’t afford NOT to hire her!

Bonnie Mansfield Buckeye Lake


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *