Go Bobby Go - And Response (7)

  • Monday, September 19, 2016

I don't live in Chattanooga, I don't even live in Hamilton County, but I live in the real world and I knew from the first sentence printed regarding Mr. Stone that his goose was gonna be cooked if he didn't keep great records.  

That's how the world works, that's what happens when you've got folks that think other folks are just plain ole' stupid.  

Good to know he's got his stuff together and I'm 110 percent behind him without waiting to hear all the nasty details.  Go Bobby Go! 

Sue White

* * *

I certainly hope my good friend Roy Exum is wrong about Mayor Berke's alleged escapades while in office. Even though I am a Republican and live outside of the city limits I had great hopes for Andy when he was elected. He seemed to be the perfect candidate to continue our city and area's remarkable Renaissance and and even though a Democrat in a Republican region had a bright future ahead of him. 

Roy's comment that it isn't the crime, but the cover-up that gets you is wise advice for anyone in any field. Not only Richard Nixon, but Bruce Pearl learned the lesson the hard way. 

Douglas Jones
Ooltewah 

* * *

I read the article by Roy Exum titled “Was Bobby Stone Framed?”  Thank you, Roy, for being brave enough to share the information.  Most of our city journalists would have been afraid to brazenly call out the mayor and his minions.  

We have all long known about the guarded ivory tower that our mayor locks himself into every day, refusing to personally speak to almost everyone, including journalists.  We have also seen his minions, speaking “on behalf of the mayor,” run roughshod over this city.  I personally watched the process when his “mean girl team” ran one of our city's most respected and talented resources, Karen Walsh, out of town on trumped up charges (that were later completely unproven) just because they had a personal vendetta.  Karen was refused an audience with the mayor several times during the process.  Sounds like this type of strong-arming was also used on Bobby Stone.  It makes one wonder what Kim White at River City did to the minion tag team to get her PILOT power revoked.   

I think what we are seeing here is not unlike the scene in The Wizard of Oz where the audience learns that the Wizard is nothing more that a farce.  Our mayor, appearing to be just too important and powerful to have time for the people he is supposed to serve, is actually not competent enough to run the city so he hides in the tower and delegates to the power hungry minions.  

Chattanooga deserves better than this circus downtown masquerading as our leadership. 

Lynn Ashton  

* * *  

Give Andy (Andrew) a break, he has a hard puzzle to work. 

Chuck Davis
Lookout Mountain, Tn. 

* * * 

I am so disgusted by Roy Exum's hatchet job, "Was Bobby Stone Framed?" that I couldn't sleep last night.  Let me start by saying that I don't know the Stones at all, couldn't pick them out of the proverbial line-up, and while I have met Mayor Berke, it would be a stretch to say I know him.  
What I do know comes from 19 years of experience as a 9-1-1 employee.  I know that domestic violence is not about love, but about power and control.  I know that an abuser's weapon of choice in that power and control portion of the equation is isolation, followed closely by humiliation.  Think Lacie Stone is feeling humiliated right about now?  Isolated?  Afraid of losing her job because of unsubstantiated, gossipy "what ifs"?   

Bobby Stone is innocent until proven guilty, but what about Lacie?  She's not been charged with any crime, yet she's being tried in the court of public opinion.  If you ask me, this is (once again) a case of a woman getting "too big for her britches".  Roy and his good old boy cronies can't stand having a woman taking a job that, in their opinion, should be a man's.  So they belittle, every chance they get.  Look at Roy's own words:  

Richardson, who was named Chief of Staff last year with less than two years of total experience, appears to be in the deepest trouble, particularly if the police chief and other members of the mayor’s team are called to testify in any impending lawsuits. “We have a 28-year-old running our city and she is the most detested member of Andy’s staff. But there is no way Andy can do anything to her,” said one impeccable source, knowing the alleged Berke-Richardson history. 

“Stacie (sic) knows nothing about what she is doing. She was his campaign chairman and has zero training or experience,” one knowledgeable person revealed. “What Andy has allowed Stacy to do can be completely reflected in the number of the mayor’s staff who have already left. This is the most rotten administration in Chattanooga ever. Stacy Richardson is the reason.”

Remember when Ann Coulter ran for mayor?  That whispering smear campaign?  If a woman is older, and doesn't look like she could be in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, then she "looks like a man", or worse, "is trying to be a man...you know what I mean..." (wink, wink)  But if she is young and attractive, well, then, she couldn't possibly have the job because she's smart and well-educated and qualified.  Oh, no...clearly she got and kept her job on her back.  I guess Lacie and Stacy's degrees from UTC, and Stacy's Master's Degree in Public Administration, don't count as "training" in Roy's "knowledgeable source's" opinion.  

Funny, no one ever said such things about Matt Lea when he was young, and hired by Senator Frist with no political experience, and he's done just fine, hasn't he?  It's never the male staffers subjected to this type of gossip and innuendo.   

As a woman, as well as the aunt of four nieces, I am appalled at how professional women are treated, every day.  I'm not really a fan of either Presidential candidate at the moment, but we see it there as well.  It's no wonder there's a pay gap.  Both women are graduates of UTC; all those folks who complain about never hiring anyone local, Mayor Berke did that, and look what people are saying.  He can't win.   

Roy said, "Are you kidding me – over six hours from the time Lacie raced to Chief Fletcher’s, her husband is finally booked like a common criminal despite what Chief Fletcher knew about Lacie and Bobby?"   

Bobby is said to have grabbed Lacie by her belt and dragged her out of the house. In rage, he threw a rock through the back window of her car. “He instantly regretted doing that. All of his friends know he isn’t like that at all … but we also know he was in some kind of agony… People need to understand. When she blew her second chance, Bobby’s heart was totally broken.” 

Newsflash, Roy--what he admitted doing is a crime, and people who commit it are common criminals.  It doesn't matter how much money they make, how nice their home is, what a sterling reputation they have.  And in law enforcement, it doesn't matter what you know about people, or their history, or their motive, or even how regretful they were immediately after they did what they did.  Lacie was leaving Bobby, and that is the most dangerous time--when a woman leaves an abusive spouse.  I have taken domestic violence complaints from both poor and wealthy people over the years.  The only difference is that the rich have better lawyers, and they fight harder because they have more to lose.   

But out of all this troubling, disgusting filth, here's what Roy wrote that concerns me the most:  

What is tantalizing at this point is the TBI report. How much of the real story – and I am assured what you have just read is truthful – will the TBI report contain? I bet it will be some fascinating reading. 

But how can it possibly compare with the truth? 

He essentially said the TBI report (which hasn't even come out yet) is a lie, that what he's heard, from anonymous sources that Roy variously describes as "solid" "irrefutable" "impeccable" and "eyewitnesses" is the "real truth".  So we're supposed to believe the word of his anonymous sources over the word of folks who have given their names, and are willing to stand in public, in court, and say what happened?  Seriously?  Which would you want to be believed, if it were your reputation on the line?   

Roy talks about Bobby Stone being the "innocent victim" in all of this.  I'll tell you who the real innocent victims in all of this ugly, gossipy, speculative nastiness are: Monique Berke.  The Berke children.  Lacie's family--how do you think her parents feel, reading this junk?  Stacy Richardson, and her family.  What if this was written about your daughter?   

Ask yourself, who benefits from this?  What's the motive?  Then ask, what's the more chilling effect?  Will young women have a harder time getting jobs?  Will a man say, "Gosh, this young woman is smart, well-educated, a real go-getter.  But people might talk, say we're having an affair.  I think I'll hire this guy instead."  That's not the world I want my nieces to job-hunt in, how about you?   

Finally, I call on John Wilson to stop giving Roy's opinion pieces such favored status.  By publishing them under the heading "Roy Exum: ___" he gives them more weight than other opinion pieces.  Roy was a sportswriter at a family-owned paper; his opinions are just that--his opinions, and no more valid than anyone else's.  Stop putting him on a pedestal.   

Kim Kinsey
Red Bank 

* * *

The facts in this case is Bobby Stone dragged his wife across the ground then took a stone and broke her car window. That is assault and he is accountable for this. 

Martha Jean Rice
Chattanooga

* * *

Kim, 

You state, “Bobby Stone is innocent until proven guilty" and then later state, “Lacie was leaving Bobby, and that is the most dangerous time--when a woman leaves an abusive spouse.”   Sounds like you have already convicted Mr. Stone in your mind.  

Chris Morgan 

* * *

My first thought when I heard of the meeting behind the Mexican restaurant and the following arrest of the husband was the song by the Bobby Fuller Band: I Fought the Law (and the Law Won). How could this guy get a remotely fair trail when the guy, ahem, "taking his place" was the boss of the judge, jury and executioner? 

Let's say that Kim is right and Bobby was the abusive husband. The mayor did not do himself any service by getting in the middle of it. What could have been a back page article was pushed to the front with the mere mention of the mayor's name.  

Kim is correct that it will be more difficult for a woman to get a professional job in the wake of this episode, but can we evaluate who's fault that is? Is it Roy's? Or the seemingly unprofessional women who are having business meetings outside of the office? No one knows what happened behind closed doors, but people saw the mayor going to his chief of staff's house and that is how rumors get started. Kim is right! If it had been a man going to a man's house, there would be no story. The mayor opened himself up to rumors, or even worse, false allegations, when he went to a female staffer's house; just ask my buddy. 

I have a Navy officer friend that had to reprimand a female under his command and he made the mistake of not having a witness in the room. After their meeting, he was promptly accused of sexual harassment and was demoted before being discharged. To add insult to injury, he was reprimanding her for making the rounds on the ship, so he fell victim to her reputation. 

Mayor Berke may be totally innocent in both of these accusations, but he has put himself in a situation with no way to prove he is innocent. The Duck Test goes: "If it looks like a duck, it swims like a duck and it quacks like a duck..." then it is going to be really hard to convince the voting public that it's not a duck. 

Tim Giordano

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