STATS ABOUT THE LIBERTY BELL
Clips of Bartlett City Council Meeting Jan 19, 2010
Clips of Bartlett Council Meeting Jan 19, 2010. Turn Up Your Volume There are Bartlett State Jail Inmates saying Bartlett Water made them sick.
BARTLETT SCHEDULES 1ST AUDIT IN YEARS
from the Temple Daily Telegram
CLICK HERE TO READ
Bartlett Schedules 1st Audit in Years
by Paul A. Romer
The click able links below have been added by web miss tress Lana Hill and are not part of the original Telegram article
Emails from previous Bartlett Auditor Preston Singleton
Published: January 1, 2010
BARTLETT - Nearly four years after former Bartlett mayor Bobby Hill was sentenced to 20 days in jail for improperly spending city funds, the city is still struggling to overcome financial issues.
The city has not been audited in four years because its financial records were in such disarray it would take an auditor days or weeks to gather the information necessary to conduct one, current Mayor Arthur J. White said.
DOCUMENTS THAT SHOW WE PAID CPA BARBARA SAGE $18,000 iN 2009 TO DO BARTLETT CITY BOOKS
In an open letter published in late October, White pledged to rectify the situation and have audits conducted again soon beginning with the most recent fiscal year and working backwards to other years.
Mattie Ingram, a Bartlett city official said the books are now organized enough for an audit. She said she called a firm this week to schedule one.
In addition the mayor said a tax issue with the Internal Revenue Service has been cleared up.
Ingram said that the issue dated back to 2005 when the City withheld several quarters of payroll taxes from the federal government that it had collected from employees.
Repeated queries by the IRS were ignored by the city until June when an IRS agent visited Bartlett on a "compliance check."
In July, the Bartlet City Council fired the city secretary, Diane Evans, Ingram has been working int he city since July in an interim capacity.
During Evans tenure, the city ignored IRS letters and accrued interest penalties Ingram said.
The Telegram was not able to confirm how much back taxes the city owed but the penalty amassed was about $38,000, according to a letter from the mayor.
White said that within the past two months the city paid its overdue taxes and the IRS had "forgiven" the penalties.
In his letter, White said income and expenditure information was unavailable for the city and many records are missing.
"Last year's budget was not maintained whatsoever," White wrote.
In his letter White wrote that residents have consistently told him the city secretary job was too much for one employee and that another position needed to be created.
He indicated this was something he agreed with but wrote that each time he approached Evans about the subject she "strongly rejected" it.
"Looking at the state of the files and financial records of the city (unpaid payroll taxes, undocumented financial transaction, no maintained filing system). it does not make sense to me that she would reject help," he wrote.
One resident say the city secretary position has been a revolving door over the past several years. The newest secretary is Jana Henderson, former Bell County Elections clerk. She was hired about a month ago.
In December 2005, Kathy Jones, then city secretary, and Denise Baker, city clerk, were fired by the City Council. At the time, interim mayor Tommy Hill, the brother of Bobby Hill, said that Jones was let go for lack of confidences; Baker for withholding information in connection with a credit card incident.
In January 2006, a judge ruled Hill abused his powers of office by writing personal checks for cash to the city and ordering the secretary to not deposit them until he gave word, which he never did. In addition, he used city fund to pay for his personal utility bill.
The click able links below have been added by web miss tress Lana Hill and are not part of the original Telegram article
Emails from previous Bartlett Auditor Preston Singleton
Published: January 1, 2010
BARTLETT - Nearly four years after former Bartlett mayor Bobby Hill was sentenced to 20 days in jail for improperly spending city funds, the city is still struggling to overcome financial issues.
The city has not been audited in four years because its financial records were in such disarray it would take an auditor days or weeks to gather the information necessary to conduct one, current Mayor Arthur J. White said.
DOCUMENTS THAT SHOW WE PAID CPA BARBARA SAGE $18,000 iN 2009 TO DO BARTLETT CITY BOOKS
In an open letter published in late October, White pledged to rectify the situation and have audits conducted again soon beginning with the most recent fiscal year and working backwards to other years.
Mattie Ingram, a Bartlett city official said the books are now organized enough for an audit. She said she called a firm this week to schedule one.
In addition the mayor said a tax issue with the Internal Revenue Service has been cleared up.
Ingram said that the issue dated back to 2005 when the City withheld several quarters of payroll taxes from the federal government that it had collected from employees.
Repeated queries by the IRS were ignored by the city until June when an IRS agent visited Bartlett on a "compliance check."
In July, the Bartlet City Council fired the city secretary, Diane Evans, Ingram has been working int he city since July in an interim capacity.
During Evans tenure, the city ignored IRS letters and accrued interest penalties Ingram said.
The Telegram was not able to confirm how much back taxes the city owed but the penalty amassed was about $38,000, according to a letter from the mayor.
White said that within the past two months the city paid its overdue taxes and the IRS had "forgiven" the penalties.
In his letter, White said income and expenditure information was unavailable for the city and many records are missing.
"Last year's budget was not maintained whatsoever," White wrote.
In his letter White wrote that residents have consistently told him the city secretary job was too much for one employee and that another position needed to be created.
He indicated this was something he agreed with but wrote that each time he approached Evans about the subject she "strongly rejected" it.
"Looking at the state of the files and financial records of the city (unpaid payroll taxes, undocumented financial transaction, no maintained filing system). it does not make sense to me that she would reject help," he wrote.
One resident say the city secretary position has been a revolving door over the past several years. The newest secretary is Jana Henderson, former Bell County Elections clerk. She was hired about a month ago.
In December 2005, Kathy Jones, then city secretary, and Denise Baker, city clerk, were fired by the City Council. At the time, interim mayor Tommy Hill, the brother of Bobby Hill, said that Jones was let go for lack of confidences; Baker for withholding information in connection with a credit card incident.
In January 2006, a judge ruled Hill abused his powers of office by writing personal checks for cash to the city and ordering the secretary to not deposit them until he gave word, which he never did. In addition, he used city fund to pay for his personal utility bill.
Good Christmas Story Rudolph * Gene Autry
Gene Autry singing Rudolph
This is a true story per Wikipedia.
**True Story of Rudolph & Gene Autry**
A man named Bob May, depresed and brokenhearted, stared out his drafty apartment window into the chilling December night.
His 4-year-old daughter Barbara sat on his lap quietly sobbing.
Bobs wife, Evelyn, was dying of cancer.
Little Barbara couldn't understand why her mommy could never come home. Barbara looked up into her dad's eyes and asked, "Why isn't Mommy just like everybody else's Mommy?" Bob's jaw tightened and his eyes welled with tears.
Her question brought waves of grief, but also of anger. It had been the story of Bob's life. Life always had to be different for Bob.
Small when he was a kid, Bob was often bullied by other boys. He was too little at the time to compete in sports. He was often called names he'd rather not remember. From childhood, Bob was different and never seemed to fit in. Bob did complete college, married his loving wife and was grateful to get his job as a copywriter at Montgomery Ward during the Great Depression. Then he was blessed with his little girl. But it was all short-lived. Evelyn's bout with cancer stripped them of all their savings and now Bob and his daughter were forced to live in a two-room apartment in the Chicago slums. Evelyn died just days before Christmas in 1938.
Bob struggled to give hope to his child, for whom he couldn't even afford to buy a Christmas gift. But if he couldn't buy a gift, he was determined a make one - a storybook! Bob had created a character in his own mind and told the animal's story to little Barbara to give her comfort and hope. Again and again Bob told the story, embellishing it more with each telling.
Who was the character? What was the story all about? The story Bob May created was his own autobiography in fable form. The character he created was a misfit outcast like he was. The name of the character? A little reindeer named Rudolph, with a big shiny nose.
Bob finished the book just in time to give it to his little girl on Christmas Day. But the story doesn't end there.
The general manager of Montgomery Ward caught wind of the little storybook and offered Bob May a nominal fee to purchase the rights to print the book. Wards went on to print,_ Rudolph the Red- Nosed Reindeer_ and distribute it to children visiting Santa Claus in their stores. By 1946 Wards had printed and distributed more than six million copies of Rudolph. That same year, a major publisher wanted to purchase the rights from Wards to print an updated version of the book.
In an unprecedented gesture of kindness, the CEO of Wards returned all rights back to Bob May. The book became a best seller. Many toy and marketing deals followed and Bob May, now remarried with a growing family, became wealthy from the story he created to comfort his grieving daughter. But the story doesn't end there either.
Bob's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, made a song adaptation to Rudolph. Though the song was turned down by such popular vocalists as Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore , it was recorded by the singing cowboy, Gene Autry. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was released in 1949 and became a phenomenal success, selling more records than any other Christmas song, with the exception of "White Christmas.."
The gift of love that Bob May created for his daughter so long ago kept on returning back to bless him again and again. And Bob May learned the lesson, just like his dear friend Rudolph, that being different isn't so bad. In fact, being different can be a blessing.
I will be doing a story about my Great Grandmother Ellafair Brown Crumbley Autry
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