Scanning the Knox News Sentinel website before bed Sunday night, I ran into an intriguing article. Apparently there was a break-in at the Farragut Knox County Clerk's office and a safe was stolen. The comments from our brilliant clerk are almost hilarious:

"That's our only office that didn't have an alarm, and I thought it did."
"They pried open several doors. The following day, we had a deadbolt lock put on the closet door."

Wonderful Foster, I'm so glad we've closed the barn door now that the cows have gotten out! How could you have known that there was no alarm on this office you are responsible for? I'm sure you had a copy of the imaginary alarm code, and you gave it to your subordinates to pretend to put in when they locked up for the night, right?

It only keeps getting better, this is the second break-in to this office, THIS YEAR!

Maybe the intrepid burglars returned after reading this article from the Clerk Newsletter in March:

"Jessica Reynolds, manager of the Farragut satellite office said the money and decals were all locked up in the safe. That's a normal practice every day at close out."

I'm surprised there wasn't a pirate-themed treasure map in the newsletter with a big "X" marks the spot, maybe it was only in the print version.

"We now keep the storage room door locked at all times." "The clerk's office shares that back hallway with the the Knox County Sheriff's satellite office. It was their idea to keep that door locked."

Well, thank god for that - someone might have walked off with the safe while the office was open instead of just waiting until the sun went down.

The irony of it all is almost unbearable, especially with more gems like this:

"The recent break-in at the Farragut Municipal Building (February 9) put the clerk's satellite office on notice that their valuable inventory is safe and secure."

"Our greatest responsibility is to take care of the taxpayer's money." - Foster Arnett

Adding insult to injury, the office mailed letters to the people who had checks in the safe asking them to issue a stop payment, and send another check. Because Foster is doing such a great job you need to pay $30 bucks to the bank for a stop payment, and send more money to the clerk's office for something they already gave you a receipt for. I'm sure these folks know that the clerk's office is the safest place in the world to entrust their money, and they just can't wait to send another check.

There was no mention in the News Sentinel story of whether or not the decals where still being stored in the safe as mentioned by the very informative office manager. I wonder what the black market value is for car tags. As a matter of fact I could not find a mention of this second break-in anywhere else on the knoxnews.com site, even though this break-in took place TWO WEEKS AGO.

Consider that this clear display of incompetence on Foster's part took place just prior to the county primary. I'm sure Debbie Cole might have enjoyed having the embarrassing tale revealed a little sooner. Maybe if the Democrats had even bothered to field a candidate in the general election they could have used this to take back the clerk's office... Then again we might not have learned of the break-in until December if they had.