Anna chamber president keeps job after board vote
By Brandi Hart, McKinney Courier-Gazette
(Created: Friday, November 02, 2007)
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Kimberly Dawes Luther will remain president of the Anna Chamber of Commerce.
Robert James Hughes/McKinney Courier-Gazette
ANNA — Kimberly Dawes-Luther will keep her position as president of the Anna Chamber of Commerce after a motion made at Thursday’s chamber board meeting to remove her failed.
Chamber director Paul Lindsey made the motion to have Luther terminated immediately as chamber president after some directors questioned Luther about financial statements. Directors Jerry Fillebrown, Earl Spencer and Gary Billups voted in favor of Lindsey’s motion to have Luther removed.
Billy Deragon, who is also a city council member; Jeremy Hersom; Michael Cross; Jeffrey Ludlow; John Rattan, who was approved by the board Thursday to be chamber chairman; and Joe Wardell, superintendent of the Anna ISD, voted against Lindsey’s motion, or in favor of keeping Luther on as the chamber president.
Board member Buddy Hayes also attended the meeting, but it was unclear how he voted on the issue as he did not raise his hand to approve or oppose the motion.
Deragon asked Lindsey after the board met for about 30 minutes in closed session to discuss Luther’s fate as the chamber president why he made the motion to terminate Luther’s role as president, to which Lindsey declined to comment on in public session.
Lindsey asked Luther how many checking accounts had been opened and closed for the chamber. An account was opened at Capital One Bank, but was closed, Luther said. The chamber’s existing account is at Legacy Bank of Texas, Luther said. However, that account will be closed soon and a new one opened up at Texas Star Bank in Anna, where Hayes is branch president.
Luther also said the chamber made about $2,400 from ticket sales at a circus held Oct. 1.
Fillebrown asked Luther if she knew how much money was in the chamber’s checking account at Legacy Bank as of Thursday. Luther said she did not know, but presented the board members the September monthly statement dated Sept. 4 to Sept. 30. Hayes also asked Luther why she didn’t have a more current checking account statement and told her she could go to Legacy Bank’s Web site and pull up the account status. Luther told the board she does not typically look at the account online.
Deragon said the board of directors has not given Luther the tools to be successful. He said the board members agreed to appoint a vice president and treasurer but failed to do that.
Luther said she was not disappointed with the board members in any way about some of them voting to have her removed as the chamber president. She was thrilled that Rattan will be the chamber’s new chairperson, she said.
However, Luther was disappointed to see copies of a list of civil cases filed in Collin County that involved bad checks against her placed under the windshield wipers of cars in the parking lot of West Crossing Amenity Center, where the chamber meeting was held.
The cases include a bad check that was written to A1-Grass Co. on March 31, 1997, for $448.25; a $100 check that was made payable to Tom Thumb on March 19, 1997; another check made payable to Tom Thumb on March 19, 1997, for $154.38; and a check that was made payable to Kroger’s on Oct. 14, 1999, for $42.50, according to the Collin County Web site, www. http://www.co.collin.tx.us/rsp-bin/pbkr125.pgm.
Luther said after the meeting that her brother, Kelly Dawes, in fact wrote the checks and forged her signature and served time in jail for that crime.
Kelly Dawes was sentenced to serve three years Nov. 15, 1991, in the Texas Department of Corrections for theft $750 to $20,000 that occurred on July 19, 1989, according to the Collin County Web site www. http://www.co.collin.tx.us/rsp-bin/pbkr125.pgm.
Her brother allegedly stole her checkbook after he got out of jail, and wrote about seven checks and forged her name, but she chose to pay the fines for the bad checks because she didn’t want anything else to happen to her brother, Luther said.
“My brother served over three-and-a-half years in the Texas Department of Corrections for forging my name. It was devastating enough to our family that my brother was in jail. I wasn’t going to add to it and I wasn’t going to stick that on my brother,” Luther said.
Luther believes someone who attended the chamber meeting other than the chamber directors placed the copies of the case history on people’s cars. Luther believes the case history list was placed on people’s cars because she is supporting the prohibition of the legal sale of alcohol in Anna, she said.
Luther and Deragon are members of the Anna Alcohol Repeal Committee and Hersom is the treasurer of the committee, which was formed to stop the legal sale of beer, wine and liquor for off-premise consumption in Anna. The issue on whether or not alcohol can be sold in Anna is currently being decided on by voters.
People in Anna have also told Luther that the copies of the cases were found at the Anna Post Office and all over town since Monday, Luther said.
“The public data stuff was placed at the post office and a builder representative called me and told me he saw it. That did not affect me when I got my real estate license,” she said.
She did not know if she will file a lawsuit against anyone who is possibly found placing copies of the case history in public places, or on people’s cars, but said it is a serious defamation of character.
“I can’t tolerate defamation of character. People should verify the information before they put it out there,” Luther said.
Contact staff writer Brandi Hart at hartb@acnpapers.com. To post comments online, access this story at www.scntx.com.
Somehow those dates are just not working for me....
