Some planning to serve in local government

by Nancy Hogland

Others look to continue.

There won’t be any election night excitement in Osage Beach where no one has any competition. Kevin Rucker is running unopposed in Ward 1, Lois Farmer is unopposed in Ward 2 and David Gasper has no competition for the Ward 3 seat. Mayor Penny Lyon is also a shoe-in with no opposition as is John Berry who is running for city collector.

In Lake Ozark only Ward 3 Alderman Jeff Van Donsel has competition. Van Donsel, Moran Rice, Bill Bolin and Sean Murphy are all vying for that seat. Don Langley has no opposition for the Ward 1 seat and Larry Buschjost is running unopposed for Ward 2 alderman.

Although Mayor Johnnie Franzeskos’ term doesn’t expire until April 2011, the board may be looking for a replacement if one alderman has her way.
Susan Drummond has filed a motion requesting the board impeach Franzeskos.
During a mid-January regular board of aldermen meeting, Drummond charged that Franzeskos “willfully released confidential information discussed during executive sessions.”

In a later interview, Drummond said she felt she had no other choice.
“I took an oath to protect the people’s interest and if I knowingly allow illegal activities to go on, then I’m no better than the person that is committing the wrongdoing,” she said. “I have proof that he has been releasing information. I’ve known about this for quite some time but I didn’t want to make an accusation without having something to back it up so for the past month I’ve been talking to the MML (Missouri Municipal League) and researching our local ordinances and state statutes. I wanted to make sure I was doing this right because this is serious and it needs to be addressed,” she said.

Alderman Jeff Van Donsel said that’s why he voted in favor of holding an impeachment hearing. He said that not only does he want to protect the city’s interests, he said he wants to give the mayor an opportunity to defend himself, something that wouldn’t be available without the hearing. In addition to Van Donsel, Drummond and Robert Davis voted in favor of holding the hearing. Alderman Judy Neels voted against it; Larry Buschjost and Don Langley were not at the meeting.
Franzeskos said while he couldn’t comment on the charges, he did say he was saddened by the entire incident, especially since this year will mark 50 years in public service.

He said when he ran for a seat on the board of aldermen he assumed that working with a group of elected people who wanted to serve their city would be similar to the fire department where “you work together as a team because your life depends on it. I was looking forward to working as a team to help our city grow.”

Originally Drummond asked for a special meeting to be held Jan 25 to give Franzeskos the opportunity to respond to the charges. Then Drummond said because she needed more time to prepare her case against Franzeskos and because she wanted to give the mayor adequate time to prepare his response, she wanted the hearing postponed indefinitely.

However, the matter was placed back on the agenda for the Jan. 26 meeting and details of the outcome were not available before this issue of the Lake of the Ozarks Business Journal went to press.