January 24, 2012
Voter Fraud or Negligence of Duty? by Sara Liberty
There has been a lot of talk lately around Blanchard concerning the 2011 City Council elections, the 2009 De-Annexation Actions, and the empty Ward 1 Councilman Seat and the lack of an election to fill this position. A few of the people discussing this issue seem to have "selective amnesia". Well, let's look at a few of the facts related to all of these issues….
In April 2009 the outgoing City Council members (Ken Riley, Steve McCarty, Leon Lacy, and Charlie Thompson) chose to de-annex an area on the north side of the Blanchard city limits. This de-annexed area included the home of one of these councilmen, who resigned as a result of his own action. This act was the last item the outgoing Council completed just before the Council was turned over to Mike Ferencich (already on the Council) and the newly elected Councilmen. The "new" 2009 City Council consisted of Mike Ferencich, Bob Hagan, Greg Shupert, Lance Terry, and Clint Mercer (by appointment to replace resigned Councilman). The De-Annexation of April 2009 occurred just as has been identified, but what happened or didn't happen next?
Since the de-annexation was the last action of the outgoing council members, the outgoing Council was not responsible for the de-annexation paperwork required to update the voters registration rolls based on the action since they were no longer in office. The "new" 2009 City Council was responsible to see that the voters' registration rolls were amended and updated to remove the de-annexed citizens from voting in city elections. Typically, if all the paperwork is filled out correctly and if all the necessary forms are included and filed with County and State Officials, it takes less than six months to correct the voter rolls and to complete the annexation and/or de-annexation process.
The City Clerk, who is under the direction of the City Manager, who is under the direction of the City Council, is generally responsible for seeing that these forms are filled out correctly and for seeing that they are filed in a timely manner. The City Manager in 2009 was Hank Weber who was later replaced by Bill Edwards, close friend and long-time sidekick and ally to Bob Hagan, Mike Ferencich, and Greg Shupert, who were all part of the "new" 2009 City Council. Since the new council members and Bill Edwards worked so well together and since the City Manager and at least some of these "new" 2009 Councilmen had been involved in annexations and de-annexations in their previous work for the City of Blanchard and/or Blanchard City Council, it's hard to imagine that they would have any problems with filing the correct forms and completing the process in a timely manner. So, what happened? Why weren't these forms completed properly and timely? And who was ultimately responsible for following the paperwork to see that it was completed and the voter records were amended?
Anyway, two years later, in April 2011, at the time of the most recent City Council elections, this voter registration amendment process was still not completed and the rolls were not changed to reflect the de-annexation action. As such, a few of the people in the affected area voted in the 2011 City Council Elections. The Voter Registrars were not made aware of the need to remove these folks from the rolls and so they were allowed to vote by the Election
Board personnel at the polling sites. In general, since the paperwork with the State and the County had not been completed at the time of the election, it is questionable if the de-annexation action by the City of Blanchard was fully complete and legal. At the time of the election, were the people in the de-annexed area still in the city limits of Blanchard if the State and County had not been properly notified and the records had not been updated in a timely manner? I believe that any decent lawyer could potentially and successfully defend this position.
Anyway, by the 2011 Elections, no one at City Hall had bothered to follow-up on any registration correction issues, if they had filed the paperwork at all. The Council had two years from the 2009 election to the 2011 election to correct the voter registration data (which would be well over three "Hagan years", see explanation below). So, how many "de-annexed" voters actually voted in the 2011 election? I have heard a number bounced around that approximately ten voters from the de-annexed area actually voted in the 2011 election, which is a fairly small number. What were the final vote counts in the 2011 elections for the Councilmen that were elected versus the losers who were not elected? Assuming that all ten of these people voted for the men who won the election (which is not necessarily correct) who would have won if these votes were not cast? How many of the losers lost by less than ten votes? If the ten voters from the affected area had not been allowed to vote, would it have made any difference in the outcome of the election? In addition, the losers had several days after the election to protest the results if they believed there was any voter fraud involved. The losers were nearly all members of the 2009 City Council at the time of the 2011 Elections and they were very aware of the de-annexation and yet no complaints were filed. I guess correcting the voter registration rolls was not high on their list of priorities. After all, they were busy installing a new water park at the time of the 2011 elections.
If we look at the final results of the April 2011 election, we see that Frank Broyles, Lynn McCumber, and Jon Owens won the election and so they joined Mike Ferencich and Bob Hagan on the City Council. At the first Council Meeting, Bill Edwards, the City Manager, was terminated and the Chief of Police resigned. One of the first actions by the new Council members was to appoint Leon Lacy as the Interim City Manager. Due to a serious medical condition, Lynn McCumber (new Ward 1 Councilman) was forced to resign in June of 2011, three months after he won election to the Council. (As a side note: Bob Hagan, in a recent rant in the Blanchard News, indicated that Lynn McCumber has been out of office for "nearly a year". Since it has been only seven months from the time when he left office to the time Hagan wrote this, far from a year, I guess we can assume that seven months equals one "Hagan year".) Later on, when McCumber's serious heart problems were corrected and under control through a special external heart pump system and since he was willing and felt able to complete his elected position, there was a proposal to appoint McCumber back into his elected position. However, the City Council, in a 2-2 split vote (Broyles, Owens YES vs. Ferencich, Hagan NO) failed to approve the proposal because no majority was reached. And subsequently there was a 2-2 split vote on almost all issues that came before the Council, so no one
else could be appointed within the 60-day time limit either.
Since no appointment could be made to fill the Ward 1 Council Seat, a special election was called by the Council for some time in February 2012 to allow the Blanchard voters to refill this Council Seat. But then, due to unexplained "technical difficulties", this election date was cancelled and the election was reportedly delayed to coincide with the March 6th Presidential Primary Election. By this time, Jon Owens had jumped sides on the Council and had joined forces with Ferencich and Hagan. His mutiny was mostly due to a legal issue argument that he had with Interim City Manager, Leon Lacy. To make a long story short, Jon Owens lost the argument with Leon and has since quit the City Council altogether since neither side could or would give him what he wanted even if he was willing to throw his vote in on trade. The transfer of power brought about by the personal maneuvering of Jon Owens led to a new 3-1 majority in the Council (Owens, Ferencich, Hagan vs. Broyles). Their first action by the new majority was to fire Bob and Mike's nemesis and Jon's recent adversary, Leon Lacy. (Remember: Bob and Mike were friends and allies of Bill Edwards, the City Manager they appointed.) When Jon Owens left the Council altogether, there was still a 2-1 majority with Ferencich, Hagan vs. Broyles, which was raised back up to a 3-1 majority with the upper hand's majority appointment of Barbara Harris to the Council to replace Jon Owens. This tooth-and-nail power struggle is really somewhat ironic since these folks aren't paid for this job. I've often times wondered what they really gain by being on the Blanchard City Council, other than indigestion, headaches, lack of sleep, and incoming phone calls at two o'clock in the morning. Anyway, back to the Ward 1 Election….
And now, it appears that the 2012 Ward 1 Special Election for Lynn McCumber's seat, which has been open for seven months (or the proverbial one "Hagan year") has been called off altogether. Why is that? It has now been nearly three years (that's over five Hagan years) since the de-annexation action of 2009 and they still don't have the voter registration rolls corrected by 2012? Two of the same Councilmen are in charge now as were on the Council and in charge in 2009 when it was supposed to be done. So, who dropped the ball? Who and what is really responsible for any voting irregularities that may have occurred? Hagan rants and raves about all the misgivings of the so-called "fraudulent" 2011 election (which actually probably didn't change the outcome of the election one iota). And yet Hagan is one of the very people who failed to correct the rolls and who failed to prevent all these problems in the first place. Hagan failed to do his duty in 2009 which ultimately caused the voting irregularities and now he is using his own past failures and negligence as an excuse to explain why they need to stop the Ward 1 Councilman Election.
If you were to ask me, I'd say Bob Hagan appears to be the type of person who would murder his parents and then throw himself at the mercy of the court because he was an orphan….what say you?
As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet..."Me thinks he doth protest too much…."
more later….
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