VOEGELE VILIFIES SOMEONE;PERHAPS HIMSELF

After watching the Fiscal Court meeting of April 7, 2009, I am convinced that Magistrate David Voegele doesn’t have a grasp of the issues behind the lawsuits filed by Magistrate Scott Davis. Perhaps he doesn’t want to understand, perhaps he is in denial, or perhaps he doesn’t have the ability to understand. Whatever the reason it does not bode well for the residents of Oldham County.

In his remarks to the court on Tuesday, Voegele seemed upset because Magistrate Davis voted to accept the anonymous donation and then sued to learn the name of the donor. He seemed to insinuate that there was a conflict in the two actions. Magistrate Davis didn’t sue Judge Murner or the court for accepting the donation; he sued Judge Murner because he refused to release the name of the donor. Voegele doesn’t seem to grasp the difference. As a matter of fact, Magistrate Davis voted to accept a second donation from the same donor, however he has not sued Judge Murner for that. What is Voegele’s problem?

Further, Voegele seems to believe that Davis should have come to the full court and given them an opportunity to reconsider the donation. There are two things wrong with that thought. First, Davis was not opposed to accepting the donation and did not see a need to reconsider his position. Second, if any magistrate, including Voegele, wanted to bring the matter before the court, he/she could have. Moreover, Voegele was aware that Magistrate Davis had filed an open records request with Judge Murner and he was aware that Murner had denied the request. If he wanted to save the court the money, he should have tried to persuade Murner to release the name to Magistrate Davis. That would have ended everything and there would not have been a court case. Voegele was probably hoping that Magistrate Davis would lose the lawsuit and be embarrassed. I seriously doubt that Voegele had a decent understanding of the law or the Supreme Court decision that was pertinent to the lawsuit.

In my opinion, Voegele believes that Magistrate Davis will possibly be one of his opponents in the race for County Judge and he is jealous that Davis was found by a court of law to be correct and received a lot of positive publicity. So now he is trying to garner just as much publicity. It is as simple as that and I believe that every other member of the court knows what Voegele is doing.

As for the illegal meeting there seems to be a couple of magistrates who believe that they have “egg on their face” and are now trying to defend their ignorance by attacking Magistrate Scott Davis. They seem to want to hammer away at the fact that he remained in the meeting and did not raise any objections to the content of the meeting. Obviously, had he left the meeting, the charges would never have been brought in a court of law because there would not have been any evidence to convict. Not one other magistrate had the fortitude to come forth and offer testimony for either side to my knowledge. Considering the fact that there have been several “executive” sessions of the Fiscal Court, every magistrate should take it upon himself to know the laws regarding those meetings. However, it took a freshman magistrate to have the fortitude to bring the matter to the attention of the public. Once again, court action could have been avoided had Judge Murner admitted his mistake and made the content of the meeting known to the public. Further, any magistrate could have brought the matter before the court and encouraged Judge Murner to make the information public but none chose to do so.

Magistrate Rash tried to trivialize the conviction by comparing it to a “jaywalking” violation. That type of thought process is typical for him. Anyone watching him in Fiscal Court knows what I mean. No explanation is needed. In my opinion he is an embarrassment to his constituents and the other residents of the county. Therefore, I do not believe that anyone was surprised by his statement nor was anyone impressed. After seeing the way he pushed to get the court to give a fee increase to Industrial Disposal for garbage collection I expect that he would have rather given Magistrate Davis’ legal fees to them. Thankfully, other members of the court saw through his actions and prevented the increase in fees.

Magistrate Greenwell’s statement regarding the illegal meeting left me with the impression that he did not believe that any of the other magistrates had the knowledge to figure out that the meeting was illegal. I hope that is not the message that he intended to confer to the court. If that were the situation, we would all really be in trouble.

Voegele again inserted his “foot into his mouth” by stating that speaker Karen Baughman was distorting the facts when she spoke to the court. Could he not see that she was quoting directly from the court decision. Further, if he had actually read the decision, he would have known that she was not distorting the facts. The decision is a matter of public record. Could Voegele be afraid that someone will bring up the fact that he sat through an illegal meeting during the next elections? I can understand his concern.

I am sure that Judge Murner did not want this matter brought before the court again. I can understand this being that there was really no need to bring it up. However, Voegele has now rekindled the fire. I do not understand why he brought the matter up. Surely he did not believe that the court could refuse to pay the attorney fees. After all, there is a court order requiring the Fiscal Court to pay the fees. Once again, his lack of understanding shines right through.

Finally, Voegele seemed to become angry when Magistrate Davis referred to him as “Mr. Voegele” instead of “Magistrate Voegele.” I have frequently reminded the court that you must earn respect. Perhaps he was not listening. That tells me that he is a very vain person. He probably has a plate on his car that tells everyone that he is a magistrate. There is nothing wrong with having pride, but you don’t need to be pompous. Voegele needs to understand that as a county magistrate he is the lowest level of elected county officials that exist. People outside of Kentucky have no clue what a county magistrate is. So my advice is, “stay in the county where you can continue to think that you are someone important.” That is not meant to demean the position of magistrate; only to remind those people holding that office to be realistic.