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Kurt Croix
npub17w98...drc6
Running for County Clerk in Ray County Missouri
Admission of violation of the law from a county official and candidate, that she deleted later that day.
She claims I'm committing a smear campaign, but I received the documents of the sunshine request exposing this information 15 minutes before she accused me of "election interference" because I thought it was unethical for her to even be in the room during that process.
Folks, this is what the people in the courthouse are doing in broad daylight, imagine what they are doing behind closed doors.
Nostr doesn't need government institutions, govt institutions need Nostr if they're going to be considered legitimate.
Nepotism or Negligence: $50k decision
As we just celebrated my first Father's Day yesterday, I found it timely to share this story which implicates my opponent for Clerk Lyndsey Church and/or Julie Chowning the current Collector and the only candidate running for Collector.
On June 4th I submitted a Sunshine request for the information around the RFP for the Ray County janitorial contract which is around $50k annually.
The response contained the newspaper posting and the accepted bid. The bid was published in the Richmond Newspaper's Friday edition, before the Tuesday @ Noon deadline. This only gave potential bidders 4 days or 2 business days to respond, which violates MO statute 50.660's "due opportunity for competition, including advertising the proposed letting in a newspaper" clause.
This is also a violation of MO statute 105.454. Section 3 states "No elected or appointed official or employee of the state or any political subdivision thereof, serving in an executive or administrative capacity, shall... Participate in any matter, directly or indirectly, in which he or she attempts to influence any decision of any agency of the state, or political subdivision thereof in which he or she is an officer or employee or over which he or she has supervisory power, when he or she knows the result of such decision may be the acceptance of the performance of a service... to him or her, to his or her spouse, to a dependent child in his or her custody or to any business with which he or she is associated." Julie Chowning is the Collector for Ray County and on both 5/21 & 5/28 you can she is at the commissioners meeting directly influencing the commissioners decision to give her husband the contract before it is signed which is why I initially submitted the Sunshine Request.
May 21 (starting at the 30 minute mark) 
May 28 (starting at 37 minute mark)
Once I did some more searching, I noticed on the county website that this RFP was posted on the county website May 5th, however I don't believe most of the county knows that they are posting bids on that site or that there is a specific resolution or previous publication stating that that would be the primary source for bids in Ray County. The posts are not accompanied by an author nor are they posted in a way to verify who or when exactly it was posted. Also, this was not included in the response from Lyndsey Church, the Custodian of Records who is also the daughter of the Owner of the company that won the bid. Also, in the recording of the meeting for May 21, you can hear reference to multiple options which were presented in the bid, which was not included in the response to my request. This improper fulfilment of my Sunshine Request seems negligent, as I have other examples.
Here are the rest of the docs I received in response to my sunshine request. 
The response contained the newspaper posting and the accepted bid. The bid was published in the Richmond Newspaper's Friday edition, before the Tuesday @ Noon deadline. This only gave potential bidders 4 days or 2 business days to respond, which violates MO statute 50.660's "due opportunity for competition, including advertising the proposed letting in a newspaper" clause.
This is also a violation of MO statute 105.454. Section 3 states "No elected or appointed official or employee of the state or any political subdivision thereof, serving in an executive or administrative capacity, shall... Participate in any matter, directly or indirectly, in which he or she attempts to influence any decision of any agency of the state, or political subdivision thereof in which he or she is an officer or employee or over which he or she has supervisory power, when he or she knows the result of such decision may be the acceptance of the performance of a service... to him or her, to his or her spouse, to a dependent child in his or her custody or to any business with which he or she is associated." Julie Chowning is the Collector for Ray County and on both 5/21 & 5/28 you can she is at the commissioners meeting directly influencing the commissioners decision to give her husband the contract before it is signed which is why I initially submitted the Sunshine Request.
May 21 (starting at the 30 minute mark) Shosho
5/21, Ray Co Commissioners Mtg
Ray County Commissioner
Shosho
5/28, Ray Co Commissioners Mtg
Ray County Commissioner
If anyone wants to see a much shorter version of my platform: View article →
If anyone wants to see a much shorter version of my platform:
Pretty neat considering I never thought I'd be on a ballot.
First time I've been memed or used to make an ai picture 
Full article text: 
Full article text: KC Kccm Gazetteer
No matter what the cause, this is about way more than unplugging a closed out machine. Literally, NO LAW was broken by the candidate. The same cann...
The Collector accused me of election interference and the Clerk reported me to the State:
Earlier this year the Clerk yelled at me in her office because I was running for her job, claiming I didn't know anything about elections, the budget, etc. Then in April I went to vote at Pisgah and asked the judges since I was running for Clerk if I could audit and watch their closeout process. Both the democrat and republican official agreed that was fine and so I returned that evening and watched them do teardown, which I saw how they closed out the electronic machine, put the ballots in bags and signed them. At no point did I touch a single ballot. Then I helped them put away the tables and chairs and all of their stuff.
This weekend while campaigning in Orrick, I happened to knock on one of the judges doors and they told me they were questioned by county officials about what I was doing that evening. I thought that was strange and brought it up during open comments today.
I immediately sent a sunshine request regarding all communications about this matter: 
To which my opponent, Lyndsey Church, falsely responds by saying no accusations were made even though you can clearly hear in the video the Collector, her mother - Julie Chowning, say what I did was interference in an election:
This is egregious and blatant targeting of an individual.
This is circling the wagons.
This is their last effort to try to get me out of the election after re-assessing my property even though no new buildings have been built on it since I moved in.
This is lawfare.
This is the "good ole boys BS" phrase I hear from voters most while on the campaign trail.
I am not in their inner circle. They hate that I ask questions as a citizen. They know that if elected I will publish ALL of the county's open records online so you can know and see what is going on in your local government.
To which my opponent, Lyndsey Church, falsely responds by saying no accusations were made even though you can clearly hear in the video the Collector, her mother - Julie Chowning, say what I did was interference in an election:
Answered some questions from some local media outlets.
View article →
Answered some questions from 2 local papers
#permaculture
View quoted note →
24 members of Richmond FFA came to the farm this morning to learn about Regenerative Agriculture. 
We need this generation to learn that farming isn't about growing plants or raising livestock, it's about caring for the soil. If you do that, then regardless of what your farm produces, you will be more resilient and independent.
“Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man.”
- George Washington
"The small landholders are the most precious part of a state"
- Thomas Jefferson
We need this generation to learn that farming isn't about growing plants or raising livestock, it's about caring for the soil. If you do that, then regardless of what your farm produces, you will be more resilient and independent.
“Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man.”
- George Washington
"The small landholders are the most precious part of a state"
- Thomas Jefferson
I created a dashboard and budget explorer for the Ray County's budget for '25: https://shorturl.at/kk6xK
The budget explorer let's you drill down into each fund, to the accounts that make it up, to the transactions that occured for each account. Also, the raw data is freely available now: https://shorturl.at/kD3Q0
If elected to Clerk, I will make this data available in real time, so we don't have to wait until the year is over to find out who's over spending.
I used to work on a team of data scientists and built data mining algorithms for 2 years as a researcher for the University of Missouri when I was an undergrad, so this was a fun little evening project refreshing those skills. I had to reverse engineer the 300+ page pdf that the county provides to get the raw data before even doing anything with it unfortunately.
Today's Commissioner's meeting is available on most podcast apps or here: https://shorturl.at/OgSv7
Summary: The county commission opened with an invocation and the approval of previous meeting minutes. Key discussions focused on rising medical costs for county inmates, prompting officials to explore discount programs and alternative options to manage high prescription expenses. The commission reviewed ARPA fund management, noting a total receipt of $4.4 million in federal funds. A major update came from Great River Engineering regarding the Homestead Village wastewater treatment facility. Following a $202,000 bid approval, officials emphasized expediting invoices to ensure project completion by the September 30th deadline. The meeting also covered county jail maintenance and security camera upgrades before concluding with a motion to adjourn.
The budget explorer let's you drill down into each fund, to the accounts that make it up, to the transactions that occured for each account. Also, the raw data is freely available now: https://shorturl.at/kD3Q0
If elected to Clerk, I will make this data available in real time, so we don't have to wait until the year is over to find out who's over spending.
I used to work on a team of data scientists and built data mining algorithms for 2 years as a researcher for the University of Missouri when I was an undergrad, so this was a fun little evening project refreshing those skills. I had to reverse engineer the 300+ page pdf that the county provides to get the raw data before even doing anything with it unfortunately.
Today's Commissioner's meeting is available on most podcast apps or here: https://shorturl.at/OgSv7
Summary: The county commission opened with an invocation and the approval of previous meeting minutes. Key discussions focused on rising medical costs for county inmates, prompting officials to explore discount programs and alternative options to manage high prescription expenses. The commission reviewed ARPA fund management, noting a total receipt of $4.4 million in federal funds. A major update came from Great River Engineering regarding the Homestead Village wastewater treatment facility. Following a $202,000 bid approval, officials emphasized expediting invoices to ensure project completion by the September 30th deadline. The meeting also covered county jail maintenance and security camera upgrades before concluding with a motion to adjourn.
May 6th Commissioner's meeting: https://shorturl.at/2sbx3
The commission decided not to implement the free tool I built for planning and zoning over 3 months ago because "we're not ready to move forward with something new" even though P&Zs reaction to the tool was "I'm excited about anything that makes my job easier".
Summary:
The county commission addressed several administrative and zoning matters during this session.
The board approved a resolution recognizing the National Day of Prayer and tabled the approval of previous meeting minutes and invoices until the following day.
A significant portion of the meeting involved a public hearing for a B2 commercial rezoning request on a 0.85-acre parcel currently operating as a used car lot. Following discussion regarding the size of the lot and enforcement concerns, the commission voted to remand the request back to the Planning and Zoning Board for further review and to allow the property owners to present their case.
Other discussions included potential asphalt projects in partnership with the City of Richmond and updates on road and bridge issues. The commission also decided to hold off on implementing a new planning and zoning software tool.
PS: if you were looking for the podcast in the past couple weeks, sorry it was down, the host had a bug and I didn't realize until this week.
In the paper again...
Small lies in public likely mean bigger ones are going on in closed meetings and records. For example, was public PII implicated when the county was hacked last year? Their answer was "no, just trust us" and refusal of multiple sunshine requests regarding what was breached.
#grownostr #accountability
#grownostr #accountability
Community-powered road condition reporting: Part 3 of projects I'm doing to give the public a sample of things I can provide if elected Ray County Clerk.
FtheRoads.com - F is for Fix
A lot of our roads are getting neglected, and even when we report them to the Commissioner's, nothing happens. Using this tool to report your road issue means your report is public, is automatically routed to the right road district and can't simply be deleted or modified by anyone but you.
CAVEAT: The email routing being correct assumes the emails I was given for special districts and the GIS boundaries are accurate.
Commissioner's meeting 4/15: 
I started recording as soon as I entered the building because of an altercation last week, so skip ahead a bit.
Summary:
The county commission meeting opened with the approval of minutes and a brief update on facility concrete improvements. A key discussion focused on Child Abuse Awareness Month. The commission agreed to draft a proclamation, designate Wednesday, April 22nd, as "Wear Blue Day," and engage local schools. Additionally, the commission issued a public notice reminding attendees that conversations in the courtroom may be recorded. Later, officials opened bids for the Homestead water project but found that none were submitted. Staff were directed to contact potential contractors and extend the bid deadline. The session concluded with a review of the upcoming schedule.
For a detailed description check out the app in any podcasting app.
Full transcription visit the episode page:
Spotify
Ray County Commissioner's Meeting 4/15
Croix4Clerk · Episode
PODSTR - Nostr Podcast Platform
A decentralized podcast platform powered by Nostr protocol
"Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees,
and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice"
Isaiah 10:1-2
