Five Of Six Russell County Supervisors Turn In Identical, Incomplete Disclosure Forms

LEBANON, Va. – No one in Russell County government claims to know why five of six members of the Board of Supervisors signed identical, incomplete public disclosure forms, but after reading Sunday’s Bristol Herald Courier, County Administrator Jim Gillespie has asked board members to do them over.

“We’re handing out new forms to them and asking them to complete and return them this week,” Gillespie said Monday, during the board’s regular meeting.

Reporting on a four-month review of about 700 disclosure forms in Virginia and Tennessee, the Herald Courier revealed Sunday that 80 public officials in Southwest Virginia filed obsolete forms this year.

Information provided to the Russell County board members noted that the county “is one of several counties and cities that were pointed out as not using a current ‘statement of economic interest form’ for submitting the information required by the code of Virginia.”

The outdated forms were only one of the problems found by the Herald Courier review; with a single exception, members of the Russell County Board of Supervisors simply checked “no” for every box on the form, left the income section blank, signed it and turned it in.

Many of the forms also appeared to be in the same handwriting. And, while it’s clear that Gillespie has promised to make sure more attention is paid to the forms in the future, it remains unclear how they got that way to begin with.

The response from county officials, like the forms, is uniform – they don’t have the foggiest idea.

“They’ve all done it about every year, so they should know how to do it,” Assistant County Administrator Alice Meade said. “They just fill them out and give them to me and I notarize them.”

Meade said she got the forms, which were outdated, “off the Internet.” She said her secretary got them from a Web site; the secretary said the Web site came from Meade.

“I don’t know,” Supervisor Bob Keene said when asked why his disclosure form was incomplete. “Maybe the lady that works there [Meade] might’ve filled those out and then we signed them. I’m not positive about that. ... I’d say she filled them out.”

Called again, Meade said she did fill out the forms – but that she did so with board members present.

“I can’t remember,” she said when asked how it was done. “That’s been so long ago back in January.”

When asked why none of the forms included any salary or wage information, or no indication that no wages were reportable, Meade said, “I don’t know. I don’t know that they’ve ever put that on there.”
The forms require one of those options.

“They just tell us what to do or they do it themselves,” Meade said. “We’ll just put their name at the top and then they fill it out. … I really don’t know because it’s their responsibility to do it.”

Meade said board members might have forgotten to check boxes on the forms because they have so much else to do.

“I didn’t know the rest of them were that way,” Supervisor Shy Kennedy said. “I think I answered it the best I could. I don’t own a lot of stuff.”

Supervisors Mike Puckett and Bill Wampler said their incomplete forms were correct; so did Keene until questioned specifically about his real estate holdings.

“I might have some rental property,” Keene said. “I do.”

As for why it wasn’t reported on the form, which requires the disclosure of property other than a principal residence, “I couldn’t say,” Keene said.

He said nothing had changed from a year before, part of the property is in his wife’s name and it’s all been reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

“It will be reported on my form this time,” Kennedy said of the 14 acres of land he failed to report.

“I have no logical answer for that, I really don’t,” Kennedy said when asked why he did not report the property. “I don’t know if I forgot about it, if I thought it wasn’t valuable as such, to give you an honest answer I really don’t know, but it’ll be on there this time.”

Supervisor Jon Bowerbank, the one board member who filled out his form thoroughly, said he simply got the instructions and filled out the form. The information on his form was typed.

“I would encourage anyone who runs for political office to try and fill those out completely. It comes as a mild surprise to me that they’re not, but perhaps that’s the way it’s always been done,” said Bowerbank, who also began a run for lieutenant governor before dropping out of the race earlier this year. “I’m not a longtime politician so I guess I just try to take the instructions and fill them out right.”

He said he has no idea why his fellow board members didn’t do the same – but the forms are “critically important” for citizens to check up on their elected officials.

Gillespie, when first questioned about the identical incomplete forms, said it was “something we need to take a close look at.”

He said Monday that not only will board members fill out the forms again, but this December he’ll consult with the commonwealth’s attorney and begin a standard process to collect and review the forms for next year.

“Be kind to us,” Gillespie said after Monday’s meeting. “We’re trying to do right.”

dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701