Grudge City

Voss-Robinson and Sonderegger, who writes Talk of Charleytown for the Post-Dispatch, have taken up her cause. Voss-Robinson goes so on to speculate about who might be the source of the strange missives that Morrow began receiving this year.

The postcards and letters inexplicably predict that she will end up in prison. One letter is a full-page depiction of the inside of a jail. Another, addressed to "100 N. Maim St.," features a stick figure in a hangman's noose and asks "Got jail?"

Voss-Robinson names one of Morrow's longtime rivals, former councilman Peter Cantwell, as "one of three realistic possibilities suspected of involvement in this cowardly act. The other 'possibilities' have not made blatant public statements, so we will not elaborate on any suspicions."

Fischer is incensed. He heard that Morrow, when talking to The Scoop, mentioned him as a suspect. "I hear I'm one of the names," he says. "It's absolute bullshit." Schipper quips: "I'm hurt they don't think it's my name."

Practicing a tirade that he will repeat on the air, Fischer says Morrow and her sympathizers are trashing someone they don't know. The person who filed the ethics complaint might have had a legitimate concern as a whistle blower, he says. Taking a breather, he adds wryly, "See, this is what we do before we go on the radio. We get ourselves all angry."

The show, which Hudson sponsors, started as a lark, but Fischer and Schipper have stepped on some toes. Morrow tried to get a copy of that particular broadcast several days after it aired and planned to distribute it to the other politicians who were slammed on Fish and Ships that day. Steve Kaspar, part-owner of the station, has so far ignored complaints, including the anonymous letter that reads in part: "You continue to air the Fish and Schips program. Why is a complete mystery? Do the right thing, get rid of this show, before the wrong things begin to happen at your station."

Schipper grew up in O'Fallon and supervises field technicians for AT&T. He is a longtime Rush Limbaugh listener, but it was the battle against Main Street Ventures that drove him into the political arena. "The more you looked into it, and the more you got resistance from the local government — and how blatant they were — the more angry I got," Schipper says. He decided to run for alderman because he thought, "I can at least work for the people — as opposed to these cocksuckers, doing what they're doing."

With a deep, made-for-radio voice, Schipper seems to have found his niche as antagonizer. "I kinda like stirring the pot," he says as he emerges, satisfied, from KFAV's tiny studio. The radio show is not the only post-denouement soapbox around. Ofallonwatchdog.org, a Web site where the content closely parallels Fischer and Schipper's pet issues, went up on October 5, 2006. Fischer and Schipper both deny running the site. "They can think all they want," Schipper says. "I don't take care of that site. I don't send stuff to the mayor."

Schipper doesn't limit himself to heckling. He and Steve Blechle, who hangs the "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsden flag in his office, are the founders of a new Republican club. Schipper says the club has about twenty members who hope to back candidates who won't bend to developers' interests. "Most Republicans in St. Charles County are shills," Schipper says. "You've really got to pay attention to who's running your city and what their ideas are, or who's manipulating them."

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Rick Fischer grew so obsessed with uncovering the secrets of the Renaud administration that he left his law practice in Clayton to set up shop in O'Fallon. I lived and died this stuff for quite some period of time, he says. It started getting to the point, if somebody had a problem in Wentzville, they'd call me. It was crazy.

On September 22, 2005, Fischer went before the board of aldermen to discuss what he had unearthed about the Renaud administration since his appointment as special counsel. Fischer, a general-practice lawyer who usually plays to juries, told the board, "My investigation has gone into further areas, and let me say, what I find is absolutely disturbing. This city, under the prior regime, failed to follow ordinances. People were given favors. Money was provided without going through the board of aldermen. I put a list together, and when I got to 35, I stopped."

Though Fischer suggested the board bring Renaud and his former staff back for questioning, it never happened. When prosecutors failed to pick up the thread, Lowery, Morrow and the local press dismissed Fischer as a conspiracy theorist. Fischer resigned in February 2006. "All I ever wanted was simple," he says. "Nobody's ever asked these guys the questions. If you ask the questions, you become the guy they attack."