After a year and a half, one of Brentwood's most bizarre political mysteries -- one that involves strawberry jam, a dead pregnant possum and a 1950's novel -- has finally been solved.
Glenn Jamboretz, CEO of Glennon advertising firm and a former consultant for Brentwood Mayor Pat Kelly, is the man behind the electioneering whodunit, all to stop a woman he calls a bully and a terrorist from winning an aldermanic election. On Tuesday, the Missouri Ethics Commission smacked him with a $2,000 fine for violating several state election rules.
The episode was supposed to be a fun exercise in free speech, Jamboretz tells the Daily RFT, but in the end: "fun turns into costing me bucks."
The craziness started in March 2012, in the heat of the Ward 1 aldermanic election. One of the candidates, Maureen Saunders, had thrust the city's irregular financial practices into the spotlight by petitioning for a state audit after fierce disagreement with Mayor Pat Kelly.
(Good thing she did. State auditors found an unusual number of serious concerns in Brentwood's budget, including embezzlement and excessive overtime, and gave the city a rating of "poor" even after a former city administrator pled guilty to embezzling.)
That's when Ward 1 residents started getting the robocalls.
The mayor admitted to paying for the first robocall, which mostly asked about his work and the audit, but no one knew who was behind the second call days later, which asked nebulous questions about personality traits in political candidates.
"I don't know who is behind it or what's going on," candidate Jim Bischoff told Patch.com at the time. "It's unfortunate that somebody has made this municipal election into this."
If only Bischoff knew, things were about to get a whole lot weirder.
Continue reading to find out how weird.
