UPDATE: O’Fallon city administrator says role with partnership is unpaid
O’Fallon City Administrator Robert Lowery Jr. says he has never been paid for his participation in the Virginia-based company Global Training Partnership. The company’s website lists him as a founder and trainer helping law enforcement with investigations of missing persons and unidentified bodies.
“This has been conceptual since September,” Lowery said, adding that he is honored to be a part of the company and plans to maintain his role as a trainer as Global Training Partnership LLC evolves.
“I intend to without any compensation,” he said in a telephone interview as he awaited a flight home to St. Louis from Miami. “Frankly, I’m surprised folks would try to find something ugly in all of this.”
He said that if the partnership does become a for-profit venture in the future, he would petition the city council for a waiver allowing him to hold secondary employment. Current city ordinances bar the city administrator from being employed outside his officials duties.
He said he was in Florida this weekend for a meeting with the International Homicide Investigators Association, of which he is a member.
Lowery missed last Thursday’s workshop and City Council meeting, and he was on vacation Friday.
Asked whether the City Council had placed him on paid administrative leave, Lowery declined comment.
Lowery lashed out at critics who have accused him of violating city ordinances by having a second job on top of his duties as city administrator.
“This is very ugly politics in the city of O’Fallon,” Lowery said.
Also, Lowery said he has no desire to be police chief in O’Fallon. The city appointed Maj. Bill Seibert as interim chief after former chief Jerry Schulte announced his retirement last month. The city says it is conducting a national search for a new chief.
Seibert said he has not decided whether to apply for the job.
EARLIER POST:
Ben J. Ermini, the only registered owner of a Virginia-based company for which O’Fallon City Administrator Robert Lowery Jr. is listed as a trainer, says no one, including Lowery, has been paid for their involvement with the company.
“There’re a number of people I’ve talked to that are willing to provide training,” Ermini told the Post-Dispatch today. “Bob is one of them, and if Bob participates, he would participate as a pro-bono instructor.”
Robert Lowery Jr.
Global Training Partnership LLC, registered in Virginia on Sept. 23, describes itself on its website as “a training organization to assist law enforcement investigators in conducting successful investigations in the area of missing persons and the identification of unidentified deceased.”
The O’Fallon City Council held a closed meeting Saturday amid growing speculation about the status of Lowery’s job. Lowery has not yet spoken publicly on the matter or his ties to Global Training Partnership.
Ermini said the company and has not yet held any training sessions. He hopes it will eventually become a profitable business. Ermini stressed that Lowery would not be paid for his participation.
“I’m not in a position to be paying people to help me,” Ermini said. “Nobody’s been paid anything for this organization.”
Ermini is the former executive director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va.
Ermini and Lowery know each other from Lowery’s work with the organization before he became O’Fallon’s city administrator.
Ermini said he has spoken to Lowery about possibly becoming a trainer for the partnership, but so far, “Bob is not involved in this at all.”
The company’s website, http://globaltrainingpartnership.net , remains under construction.
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Joel, did you ask Ermini why the web site originally said it was founded by Ben Ermini, Robert Lowery and William Hagmaier? It also said the principals in the partnership were these three. Once this came into question the web site suddenly changed and only listed Ermini.Don’t you find that a little strange. And let me see if I understand this, Ermini is going to get paid for Lowery to go out and conduct training seminars but Bob gets nothing? Lowery sounds as credible as Blagojevich. By the way, as I said before, a little digging is all it takes to see what Bob has received form the company.
Joel,
Ask Big Bob about a certian car he has driven.? You might want to check why Bob was listed as one of the three “princials in the partnership” along with Ermini, William Hagmaier and Lowery Jr. You might also want to look into the connection between the three amigos and thier “offical” positions with the IHIA (International Homicide Investigators Association) who just held a week long confrence in O’Fallon - any conflict??? Any money exchange hands for this to happen??? Lowery is involved much deeper than just a pro bono trainer. The only people that can’t see that is the Mayor, the Pig Lover and The Post Dispatch.
FYI, I’ve got the copies of the website BEFORE it was “under construction”. You know, the one that listed him as a partner. It was shared with others. It was a simple matter of googling it. Couldn’t someone have shown the mayor how to work the computer, so she could see for herself? Many of us have known it for quite some time and tried to bring it to others attention in this very arena. Makes you wonder what happened to “investigative reporting” doesn’t it?
Why would a website list an individual as a founder and principal in a company, then say that the individuals were not paid by the company, but merely a pro-bono trainer. Is that not misrepresenting your company? Wow. I don’t know which is worse? Bob typically will tell four different ’stories’ on any one situation, just to make sure that one them may be right. He is very wiley and difficult to pin down when it comes to the truth.
Joel, why is it you simply ignore relevent facts and your readers learn more from the comments than your story?
See Ya Bob-
Journalists require documented evidence before they report information.
Thats how it works. If you don’t print what the quitters and losers want, you become the next lunch. Any time now, they will be blasting your boss about you.
My apologies Joel. I thought the same rules applied here as they do on the other P-D Blogs. Current events allows such things.
My point is simple and straight forward. NO ONE outside the City of O’Fallon really cares about this issue. There are many other communities in the greater St. Charles area with more important things happening that affect the ENTIRE county. O’Fallon, inspite of their “over-important” view of themselves, has always been a joke to watch. Why is media space being wasted on an issue that is internal and of no consequence to anyone else in the county?
One of the 100 Best Places To LIve? I don’t think so………..
Casual Observer, if you don’t care why are you reading the page? It’s a news article posted on a website. Go back and read the list of articles in ‘Chas Beat’, almost every single one only pertains to the city in question. If you don’t care then don’t come back because you are right, while this is a big story for O’Fallon it really does not affect anyone outside of O’Fallon.
Does anybody believe that Bob Lowery is not getting paid? Really? Come on, Bob, how dumb do you think people are? Why would you establish a company without the intention of being paid? Is Bob that civic-minded? What a guy!