8 NOV 06: RUMORS BOILED OVER

Sorry, but I'm not ready to talk about the election here quite yet. I've been kept busy since practically the minute the polls closed Tuesday night -- filling in on an overnight shift for a man who was called to jury duty. Leave it to the local judges to silence bloggers....

(Besides, I want to write about the election when my brain is fully functioning. That way I'm on slightly higher ground than some of the candidates.)

But I've also been busy for a few days trying to get to the bottom of a different sort of negative attack - one directed against a longtime employee of the Muscogee County Schools. Hopefully you realize "attack ads" never really go away. They're simply spread by word of mouth, for free.

Muscogee County School District Human Resources Don Cooper was not pleased when I talked with him Tuesday morning. I had to ask him about RUMORS going around the district that the top nutrition official was fired last week - rumors he declared FALSE. If Jim Wetherington wasn't going to fire the City Manager, who knows whom he might target....

But seriously: someone in at least one school cafeteria spread stories that School Nutrition Director Pat Schneider was fired. Over several days, the rumor morphed from her "not keeping her hand out of the cookie jar" to buying cafeteria items without going through the bidding process -- which only proves evolution is alive and well in Muscogee County Schools.

Don Cooper isn't sure how those rumors got started, but he told me in no uncertain terms Tuesday Pat Schneider was NOT fired. She retired from the School Nutrition Director job last week, Cooper said. So Schneider got out of the kitchen before all of this heat.

Don Cooper admitted he couldn't give me any negative details about personnel matters, if there were any. But he took pains to tell me "without question" there was nothing improper involved in Pat Schneider's retirement. The critics apparently just want to stick so many rolling pins in her nicely risen souffle.

Don Cooper says it saddens him to learn people are spreading false reports about Pat Schneider's departure. He wants it known that there's no good reason for school employees to trash a retiring director in this way. And they probably shouldn't think about processing the rumors into a stew or casserole, either.

Items like this one show the perils of being a blogger about local news. Sometimes you receive tips which are helpful, and which turn into interesting or groundbreaking stories. But sometimes you also receive tips which are off-base - like dollar-bill tips left in a puddle of spilled beer on a bar.

But since the rumors about Pat Schneider started last weekend, your blog has received two more rumors about other school personnel. We have NOT had time to check on those yet. But somehow, I suspect I will NOT be put on Don Cooper's party invitation list....

(We should note the other reports have NOTHING to do with school cafeterias. The rumor mill there is empty, even if the pepper mills are not.)

Now what other things can we talk about which are truthful, and not bogus?

+ The Phenix City Council voted to give the mayor's office a 300-percent-plus raise, from $12,000 to $50,000 a year. Yeow - which committee at the University of Georgia sent over THIS pay plan?

(The Phenix City Council also passed a resolution endorsing a "mayor-council" form of government, which would essentially fire the City Manager. The council tried something similar to this a few years ago, while City Manager Bubba Roberts was on National Guard duty. I have this feeling Roberts is looking up Max Wilkes's attorney.)

+ A substation breaker problem knocked out electricity to much of Ladonia in the middle of the night. Alabama Power reports service was out for about 40 minutes - which I think still keeps that area ahead of time, compared with south Phenix City.

+ Students at Fort Benning's McBride Elementary School spent a day learning about Morrie McBride, whom the school is named after. So does the school library have the book "Tuesdays with Morrie" - and will a disclaimer sticker be put on the cover?

COMING THURSDAY: An election review - we promise....

Thousands of visitors read this blog every month, in Columbus and around the world. To advertise to them, offer a story tip or comment on this blog, write me - but be warned, I may post your e-mail comment and offer a reply.

BURKARD BULK MAIL INDEX: 4566 (+ 135, 3.0%)

If you mention this blog in public, please be polite enough to let me know.

© 2003-06 Richard Burkard, all rights reserved.