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Junction
Township dispute results
in second resignation
Wayne White | Managing Editor
Ongoing disputes among Junction Township board members has led to
the second and possibly a third board member’s resignation
within a month. In May, then township clerk Virgil Scheid submitted
his resignation to the Osage County Commission after township trustee
Chuck Trautman accused him of not discharging his duties as clerk.
Monday, Trautman appeared before the commissioners, first discussing
the reasons for which he said he had asked Scheid to resign. Before
the discussion ended, Trautman indicated his wife, Janet Trautman,
would be resigning her position as township treasurer and he would
resign as trustee.
Chuck Trautman said when he first asked Scheid to resign, “He
laughed at me and said that he would stay on for two years and make
me suffer every minute of it. So I see what my suffering is.”
Trautman complained, “[Scheid] then goes behind our back and
comes into this meeting here and resigns here.”
Osage County Commissioner Carl Meyer later explained to Trautman
that Scheid followed proper procedure by submitting his resignation
to the county commission.
“He can’t resign to the township board, he has to come
here,” Meyer said.
Trautman then turned his complaints to a discussion he held with
county counselor Delton Gilliland at a county commission meeting
May 26, during which Gilliland questioned Trautman about payments
made to the township treasurer for taking deposits to the bank.
“I was slammed down the throat by Mr. Gilliland here about
$120,” Trautman said.
Trautman’s comments elicited Gilliland’s suggestion
that the commission limit the discussion.
“Mr. Chairman,” Gilliland said to Meyer, “you
could listen to five hours of complaints about something that’s
occurring in another municipality. I would suggest the board ask
for comment on something that is within the jurisdiction of county
government.”
With discussion continuing, Trautman questioned the commissioners
about how they would react “if you were chairman of this board
and either one of those refused to sit at the table with you and
refused to sign documents or checks, would you ask for his resignation?”
Osage County Commissioner Kenneth Kuykendall responded that elected
officials could not demand each other’s resignations.
“He’s elected and you’re elected,” Kuykendall
said. “This is a three-member board same as you have, you
all vote two to one. I don’t see what your issue is. If one
is not doing what you want, you still have a two to one majority.
He is still an elected official … you’re both legally
elected, whether it’s right, wrong or indifferent.”
Trautman also confronted Osage County Mike Pruitt about comments
Pruitt made at a recent township meeting.
“Mr. Pruitt you were at one of our meetings and as you left
you stopped by our table and said we were doing a great job,”
Trautman said, “and now you turned the rattlesnake into the
cage, what was the purpose of that?”
Trautman said he was referring to the county commissioners’
appointment of Don Croy to fill Scheid’s vacancy.
Croy, who was present at Monday’s commission meeting, objected
to Trautman’s comments and said he had conducted himself in
a professional manner at all meetings he had attended.
“[Croy] has not had one positive comment toward us in the
last three meetings,” Trautman said.
Trautman said the disputes had led to his wife requesting to resign
as township treasurer.
“I’m also letting you know that I too am offering my
resignation,” Trautman said. “I do not have the support
of the commissioners or the county counselor … what’s
my point of being here?”
Gilliland questioned whether Janet Trautman had submitted a written
resignation.
“The board can’t operate on a verbal resignation,”
Gilliland said, noting Janet Trautman was not present to submit
her resignation.
“Do you have a written resignation?” Gilliland asked
Chuck Trautman, who began writing his resignation on a legal pad.
Meyer opened the meeting to public comment, hearing first from Chuck
Sypher, a resident of Fairfax Township and subdivision on Pomona
Lake’s south shore.
“I really hate to see him resign because everyone in our area
is commenting on the improvement in our roads,” Sypher said.
“It’s the first time we’ve really had what I consider
responsive maintenance. We have fought this issue for years.”
Sypher also said he wished to clarify a letter he sent to the county
commission in May, which he said had been misrepresented by unnamed
persons.
“I did send a letter to the commissioners in support of Mr.
Trautman,” he said. “We were very appreciative of the
county and the townships – the two townships worked together
to knock down that hill going into South Shore. The issue was however
they were about 90 percent done and they pulled all their equipment
out of there. My support for Mr. Trautman was that his men were
coming down that hill and were continuing to improve that access
road and it’s the best it’s ever been right now.”
Sypher also noted that for the first time in eight years he had
seen a grader maintaining roads in the housing development where
he lives.
“I don’t want to go back to that old style of government,”
he said.
Commissioners also heard from Gary Summers who lives in Junction
Township and in a housing development near Vassar. He said the township
had been maintaining his road for the 34 years he had lived there.
But since new board members were elected, “the water runs
down the middle of the road, we haven’t had any gravel put
on the roads to speak of,” Summers said. He offered to fill
the position left vacant by Trautman’s resignation.
Two other Fairfax Township residents spoke in favor of Trautman,
citing improved road conditions.
Trautman said the only reason he ran for township trustee was to
improve the roads. He also said he had persuaded his wife to run
as treasurer.
“She didn’t want to and I didn’t blame her,”
Trautman said. “And anyone who would stand in line for this
position has got brain damage.”
With the commission unanimously accepting Trautman’s resignation,
Meyer asked if anybody was interested in being appointed to township
board.
Summers was the only person to respond, bringing an outburst from
Trautman.
“Are you going to ramrod him in there too, like you did the
last one or you going to follow proper procedure?” he asked,
saying he believed the commission should advertise the vacancy before
making an appointment.
“It’s never been done that way,” Kuykendall said.
“Traditionally it’s almost impossible to get people
to volunteer to be on a township board.”
On Pruitt’s motion, the commission unanimously appointed Summers
as Junction Township trustee.
Sypher also objected, “I don’t believe best practices
have been followed here, either with Mr. Croy’s nomination
or with Mr. Summers. I don’t think the procedure is really
correct.”
“It is standard practice for us to appoint people to townships,”
Kuykendall said. People retire and resign from townships constantly.
If you can in general find someone willing to be on townships, you
better grab a hold of them, because we’ve got empty holes
now that we can’t find people to fill on townships.”
Kuykendall also expressed his opinion that township form of government
“is ancient and antiquated, but it’s what we have.” |
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