More bad news about the Burcham/Tilley legal scheme

Here's a good indication that Tom Burcham's legal scheme is more predatory than "principled":  Burcham refuses to sue his own town, Farmington, for "stacking" local taxes, even though he's willing to enrich himself with lawsuits against other towns for the same practice. 

And in an unrelated story, Farmington City Attorney Tom Burcham told the city it was completely legal to "stack" its taxes in 2007.

“When (Tom Burcham) was the city attorney in Farmington, he gave a legal opinion that they’d be able to stack their taxes and they did,” said Gary Markenson, lobbyist for the Missouri Municipal League.

Farmington voters approved an additional half-cent sales tax in 2007 to fund $9 million to construct a new ewer treatment plant and make upgrades to the city's water system, said Greg Beavers, city manager of Farmington.

Chad Livengood's latest update on Burcham's two-pronged strategy in the News-Leader is here.

As I noted in my last post, Burcham began suing towns for the "stacked" tax practice in 2007, the same year he approved Farmington's decision to move forward. 

And no matter what Burcham says in 2009, his personal profit motives were clear from day one.  Here's what he told KMOV about the suit he filed against Iberia in the Fall of 2007.

In a February interview with News 4 Investigates, Burcham did not deny a desire to make money off these cases, but insisted he was mostly interested in repealing what he called "illegal sales taxes."

The suit was filed on behalf of Tonya Sheets. Sheets is not resident of Iberia, but is a resident of Jefferson county and an employee of Burcham's law office.

She was awarded no damages other than the $20,600 in attorney's fees.

No word yet on why Burcham found stacked taxes to be both illegal and legal at the same time.

** Tonya Sheets, coincidentally, served as Treasurer for The 106th District Republican Committee (Burcham was the Deputy Treasurer), which moved tens of thousands of campaign dollars to the Steve Tilley/Burcham-controlled Missouri Leadership Committee while the Iberia lawsuit was still in progress. All together the 106th District Committee moved more than $100,000 to the Missouri Leadership Committee in the past few of years. 

For more information on the campaign finance web of Tilley, Burcham and Sheets, check out our analysis here.