Strong community journalism makes our region better

“Liar” “Uneducated” “Not human”

Imagine for a moment sitting in a room with friends, neighbors, co-workers and strangers, being called these things week after week by someone in power.

That was what about nine months was like for me in 2014-2015 as the newly appointed city reporter during Heath Kaplan’s term as city manager.

“The one thing that troubles me is we have a paper that does not care about the truth,” Kaplan said at a public meeting in December 2014, after refusing to answer questions I posed on technology spending, the future of the city utility, the future of city hall and other issues. “Shame on the writer Donna Farley. Shame on the paper. They don’t have any interest in the truth here.

“They are only interested in one thing, selling papers.”

“They do not run the city of Poplar Bluff. Heath Kaplan does,” he said.

He followed that by calling my reporting “shameful,” “disgraceful” and “dishonest.”

At that time, he was particularly upset with an article I had written about a proposal he made to close the Black River Coliseum during the week and have it open only on Fridays and Saturdays.

Another article was about a proposal he made to join the funds from the city utility with those of the city’s general fund.

At the time, he was in the process of getting approval for millions of dollars in no bid technology contracts to someone he had previously worked with in Michigan. More than $1 million of that technology would never cross the border into Butler County and never be recovered by the city. Hundreds of thousands of dollars more were ultimately overpriced, unneeded or unusable.

But I didn’t start my reporting by saying that. Because I didn’t know that.

I asked for documents related to the bids on the technology, for instance. And then I asked why the price for phones changed by hundreds of dollars — up not down — before they were purchased. And why did every desk, including phones at the sewer plant not assigned to an employee, need to have a $630 video phone? The phones were ultimately purchased at that price, for those locations.

When I ask a question and the answer is disproportionate to that question, it’s obviously a red flag.

If someone can only get angry and attack, instead of doing their job as a public employee, spending public tax dollars, and providing a reasonable answer, it’s because they’re trying to distract us from the real truth.

But all of this is old history that we’ve shared. What I really wanted to talk about here is what I didn’t do.

When I was tasked with looking into what Kaplan was doing, I really had no idea where to start or what I would find.

So I called people. I called people in other states, people that I didn’t know, people that I had no idea if they could help me. It was former co-workers, former bosses, and anyone with any ties that I could find at the various cities Kaplan had previously worked.

The majority said they couldn’t help me — although many were sympathetic and unsurprised by Poplar Bluff’s troubles. But every time I left my name and number and asked them to share it with others.

The item that finally got Kaplan fired by the city came from an anonymous source. I never knew the man’s real name, although I did know details about how he came by his information. I’ve never shared any more about him publicly than he agreed to and I won’t now, because that was the promise I made.

But I also didn’t share publicly everything that he gave me, including items that would have been more damning. And I won’t now. Because I couldn’t verify those items.

This source did give me a signed personal loan document that was between Kaplan and the IT provider he brought to the city. The IT provider who walked away with millions of dollars in no-bid contracts under the guise of “emergency” circumstances.

This document had an official signature from a notary in Michigan. I called that notary — who happened to be Kaplan’s former assistant — and was able to verify the document independently. Kaplan also later admitted to the loan, although he said it was of no importance. A majority of the city council at the time disagreed.

There were other documents that were more significant and which were provided by the same source. I tried but could never verify them, even though I did believe them to be authentic.

Unlike the podcasts you hear and television shows you see, I chose not to release those. I wasn’t going to use something that could have been made up to get a man fired.

That is what community journalism is to me.

It’s about following hard stories when literally every other media outlet in the area is ignoring them, not knowing what the outcome is going to be, making people — even people we may have thought of as friends — mad.

At least one city council person at the time accused me of ruining the city, even after Kaplan was let go and everything was brought to light. I don’t know if that person’s opinion has changed or not in the years since, including after Kaplan got a lifetime ban from the professional organization for city managers.

Our headlines aren’t always as splashy as this. They aren’t always as splashy as some.

Our posts to social media sometimes aren’t as quick as some — because we will not copy and paste from someone else’s reporting. We will independently confirm the facts.

And we have typos. Typos that kill us when we pick up the print edition and they literally jump right off the page.

But we’re here. We’re doing work that is important.

Stories like the Kaplan era are rare. We’re lucky that we don’t see such brazen misuse of public money by one individual every day.

But we were also here to report on the controversial topic of whether or not to use city money to pave a highway to an off-road park in the county.

We’re here when Margaret Harwell opens another community art show.

We’re here when the housing authority holds its annual block party.

We’re here to feature local teachers doing outstanding jobs in our classrooms.

We are your newspaper. We have been Poplar Bluff’s newspaper for 156 years.

I know that today’s announcement will make people mad. I know that the people who want to see us fail will call it a sign of the end.

I don’t.

We. Are. Here.

To a person, everyone here takes the verbal beatings, the stress and the long days because we believe in community journalism.

We believe in the impact it can have not only on city government but also on the sixth-grade science fair winner and the struggling single mom who didn’t know about a new food pantry.

I hope you believe in it too. I hope you’ll help us make this transition.