OUR NEXT EDITION MARCH 25.
The next edition of the First Capitol News will be on March 25, 2006. We will be training next week on Computer Assisted Investigative Reporting. We believe this training will help us bring an even more exciting and interesting newspaper to our readers. Even though there will not be a printed edition you will be able to receive daily updates from our web log; firstcapitolnews-today.blogspot.com.
PROSECUTOR SHOULD CALL A GRAND JURY ON ELECTION RECALL PETITION CHARGES
The St. Charles Police Department has turned over their investigation on the recall petition drive of Councilwoman Dottie Greer to the office of St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Jack Banas. Chief of Police Tim Swope, in a letter to residents whose signatures were on the petitions told the residents; Through the course of the investigation we have uncovered several criminal violations, including widespread forgeries of signatures on the petitions turned in for the recall election. That is coming from the law enforcement leader of our City who has many years of experience in criminal investigations. The evidence was developed by experienced detectives of his department who also have many years of experience in criminal investigation.
Attempts have been made to derail or halt the police investigation by people who claim to be community and civic leaders but who are actually trying to force their agenda on the residents of St. Charles for their monetary gain. Rumors abound that our Police Chief was threatened with the loss of his job if he allowed this investigation to move forward.
Now that the police report is in the office of the St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney just imagine the political demands that are probably being made upon the prosecutor to not prosecute the criminal violations and widespread forgeries the police have uncovered.
We believe it is time for the prosecutor to impanel a Grand Jury. He would not have to be besieged by political demands and the voters of St. Charles City would know an impartial panel would be making the decision on whether to prosecute or not.
A Grand Jury was recently impaneled to determine if charges would be filed on the removal of World Trade Center debris in O’Fallon. This incident heavily outweighs that. It is time for a Grand Jury to review the recall petition criminal charges.
WAS THAT A THREAT WE HEARD?
After the City Council meeting Tuesday evening a lot of people were getting dizzy due to the spin the recall committees tried to bring forward. Was that another threat to the FCN we heard from a member of the Kielty family?
During his diatribe to the City Council on why the First Capitol News should be silenced, Ken Kielty in quoting Thomas Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots alike.” At the time it sounded like a veiled threat to me. We received several phone calls and e-mails from residents who also considered it to be a threat. We are reprinting an e-mail that was sent to members of the City Council by a resident…
The speakers at last night’s Council meeting were the biggest spectacles we’ve seen appear before the Council since we’ve been watching the Council. Are these the people who are trying to take over the County? Their ranting and raving was just nonsense.
What did Ken Kielty want you to do about the FCN? Change the U.S. Constitution to read freedom of the press EXCEPT for FCN? And what did he mean quoting Jefferson about the Tree of Liberty must sometimes be watered with the blood of patriots...is he going to shoot Tony? And that lady that began to rail about lack of health care in this country and then switched to ranting about FCN...does she want Tony to provide health care for her friend? What was she talking about? And T.R. who was shaking hands and patting Chief Swope on the back before the meeting and then tore into him and called him a Nazi. Would you want a backstabber like that to build your house? These people are nuts. The only good thing they did was to hold up FCN so many times, FCN got a whole bunch of free publicity. They also made the Council appear calm and collected!
If you recall, Kielty’s son the attorney, threatened us some time ago on the telephone but we recognized his voice. He later admitted he had made the threatening call to our office. Recently a telephone call threatening bodily harm was made to Bob Bredensteiner, which put him in fear of his life, because of a letter he had written and was published in the First Capitol News. The threatening telephone call was traced back to a telephone registered to Ken Kielty. When asked to come into police headquarters to answer questions, his son the attorney, told the police his father would not come in and would not cooperate in the investigation. The prosecutor’s office refused to issue charges because it could not be proven beyond a doubt that Kielty was the one who made the call.
Kielty, TR Hughes, Linda Meyer and Kevin Kast were there not to address the City Council as they would have you believe, they were there because the police had discovered fraud and forgeries in their recall petitions and this group was trying desperately to pull the wool over the eyes of the public and put their spin on these illegal actions. They were performing for the television cameras hoping the residents of St. Charles would believe their lies and vicious attacks. They put so much spin on their efforts it made a lot of people dizzy. But my award for the quote of the evening goes to Kevin Kast, ‘I might remind you however, a few forged signatures, unacceptable as they are, might be expected.”
Hughes sent out an e-mail requesting members of the Do The Right Thing Committee, Citizens Empowerment Committee, and friends and admirers to TR Hughes attend the City Council meeting to support their efforts to intimidate the Councilmembers. They have been spouting their Do The Right Thing organization now has over 1,000 members. I would challenge that. With all their efforts to bring out the crowd they could only account for about 10 members of the audience being with them. I guess they had the same people sign up members for Do The Right Thing as they had collect the recall petition signatures. And by the way, “Do The Right Thing” is a registered trademark for a program of KMOV TV and Schnucks Market. I wonder if they would be doing the right thing by using a registered trademark without permission?
