After complaints to the bosses of the editor, Brent Addleman, of the Glen Rose Reporter,including Gatehouse Media,  regarding how poorly he had covered the case of Best v Harper, Addleman finally wrote up his version of the case last week. He FINALLY put in that this is a CIVIL case. When I saw it was wrong on one item and missing another, I wrote a letter to the editor, which Mr Addleman did not publish. Here is my unpublished letter. 

I was glad to see the excursus, in the Reporter article of January 29, 2015, on the civil lawsuit Darrell Best brought to attempt to remove an elected official from office. Two corrections.

First, the name of my blog, which I, a female, own and manage,  is “Somervell County Salon”, not “Somervell Salon”. Mr Addleman will recall that I corrected Andy Lucas, who also got this wrong, during sworn testimony regarding Best’s absurd allegation that I did not myself write a blog post concerning Glen Rose Medical Center and the vote to ignore a signed contract. In my world, women are capable adults who can write or express opinions without being under the control, Svengali-like, of a man, or, rather than words, must resort to vulgar hand gestures. It’s surprising, and disappointing, to me that, in 2015, there are still some men who cannot fathom the idea, and apparently are uneducable on this topic,  that women are more than male-controlled appendages.

Second, the first allegation of 3 in Best v Harper, regarding a comment Paul Harper made about zero tax rate, is not mentioned at all in the article. Why is that? After all,  the Glen Rose Reporter, after the civil lawsuit had been filed, corrected a previously incorrect article about this topic on Sept 11, 2014. For the sake of accuracy and completeness, that allegation, along with its correction, should have been listed.

Here is a screen capture from the civil hearing transcript, Andy Lucas is asking the question, and Darrell Best answers. Brent Addleman was IN THAT HEARING. Why does it matter that Addleman left that out? Because it doesn't shed full light on the fact of how truly frivolous Best's lawsuit it, that, in particular, the part concerning me, was not merely an *exhibit* in the lawsuit, but an ALLEGATION which both my husband and I testified about. Mr Best surely thought these baloney allegations were important since he brought a civil lawsuit initially with JUST THOSE TWO ALLEGATIONS. And yet, Brent Addleman left out the first allegation, which the Glen Rose Reporter had wrongly reported about and had to issue a correction on, and gave short shrift to the second allegation by minimizing it as an *exhibit*. No, Brent Addleman, these were the FOUNDATION of Darrell Best's civil lawsuit which he brought with the help of county attorney Andrew Lucas. 

All 3 listed civil allegations, plus on-the-fly *kitchen sink* allegations were considered by Judge Cooke. Judge Cooke, on Jan 20, 2015, said “I do not believe the state has met its burden to remove him from office. The most important thing we have in this country is the election of our citizens, whether we agree with what Mr Harper does or does not do, the voters voted and put him on the board”. 

I expect better from what should be a newspaper of record for the community, as well as from Gatehouse Media.