HERMANN — Verification of signatures on a petition seeking relocation of the county seat, presented July 31 to the Gasconade County Commission,  has been completed.

Gasconade County Clerk Lesa Lietzow said she and her staff have verified 2,610 valid signatures of registered county voters. The petition was presented to the commission by members of the Owensville Chamber of Commerce.

“The petition has enough valid signatures and the commission instructed me we’re to carry on,” said Lietzow. “The next step is to draft the ballot language. (Prosecutor) Ada (Brehe Krueger) will be asked to draft the ballot language. The attorney who drafted the petition has been instructed to contact Ada.”

Certification of the any petitions for the November ballot are due by 5 p.m. Tuesday (Aug. 26) with the exception of Presidential candidate  nomination which are yet to be determined at national conventions.

“After Ada drafts the ballot language, the commission issues a notice of election (to the County Clerk)  calling for it to be on the Nov. 4 ballot,” said Lietzow.
Lietzow said on Friday that verification was completed Thursday. The final number of signatures was 21 more than was needed to present the  document for ballot consideration. Petitions for the November ballot must contain signatures of 25 percent of the registered voters based on numbers from the previous General Election.

The 222-page petition included 3,072 signatures.

Lietzow said she and her staff did not count signatures of those who were not registered, duplicates, and those which were not legible when compared with voter registration cards maintained by her office. Some signatures, she said, were “totally illegible where as on the voter registration cards they were.” On others which were discarded, signatures did not match signatures from the registration cards. Some of those, she noted, were from the 1970s and signatures may have changed.

The clerk said the commission was informed at their meeting Thursday morning in Hermann that the verifiction process was nearly complete. Commissioners held a closed session on Thursday to discuss the issue with Brehe Krueger during a conference call. Lietzow was present and said no votes were taken in closed session.

Afterward, the commission instructed her to continue with the verification.

David L. Baylard, a Union attorney representing Hermann-area resident Sharon Meyer, sent an Aug. 11 letter  to Brehe Krueger in which he demands “that you inform the county clerk that the signed petitions are not sufficient under Missouri law under the cited statute and Judge (Gael) Wood’s previous judgement and direct that the matter NOT be placed on the November 4, 2008, ballot.”

A copy was also sent to the commission and read into the minutes on Thursday.

Baylard contends the petition includes the same error of the 2006 petition which Wood, the presiding circuit judge, ruled as null and void. Baylard notes “the new petition only requests that the removal  question be placed on the ballot for the purpose of a vote; the new petition does  not indicate that the signers were petitioning ‘for a removal of the seat of justice’ as required by 47.030 RSMo. and Judge Wood’s Judgement.”

And, Balyard notes, “In the present case, there is no way to determine how many actually wanted it moved and how many just wanted it put to a vote.”

The petition asked: “Shall the County seat of Gasconade County be removed from the City of Hermann to the City of Owensville?”