County officials won't be held accountable at all.

Well, just as we suspected, the good ol' boy mentality is as strong as ever in Franklin County. Apparently, government officials paid for with our hard-earned tax dollars can discriminate against citizens and pretty much do what ever they want without fear of even so much as having to apologize, which is all we asked for in our complaint letter.

Since it had been almost two months since we sent our letter to Franklin County Presiding Commissioner Ed Hillhouse and hadn't heard anything since the initial generic response he sent us acknowledging our letter, we sent another letter last weekend asking when he thought his investigation would be complete and also gave him some additional information, which completely verified our initial suspicions.

We recently had an appointment with Sarah's M.D. at St. Louis Children's Hospital so we could meet the staff before we got Sarah home and took her in for her first appointment. The immigration form the health dept. director needed to sign stated if the physician is not in your health jurisdiction and is not familiar to you, you may wish to contact the health officer responsible for the jurisdiction of the physician prior to endorsing.

Well, the dept. director went one step further and called our M.D. and didn't just call her once, but twice. Our M.D. told us she simply told Mr. Roden there is no reason this child can not come into the country. This is the new information we passed along to Mr. Hillhouse.

There was absolutely no reason Mr. Roden should have been asking questions that required such a response from our M.D. His only responsibility was to verify our M.D. for the U.S. Government. He should not have been asking any questions about Sarah, much less questions apparently about trying to keep her from coming into the country. Just as we suspected, the director and county attorney were trying to keep our adoption from proceeding. Even after Roden verified our M.D. with two phone calls, those two men were not going to fill out our paperwork until I called the county attorney and schooled him on what a huge mistake he was making.

We received a reply from Mr. Hillhouse today stating:

"In response to your letter of June 28, 2008, I investigated your previous and shared those complaints with Mr. Roden and Mr. Vincent. After discussing the issues you raised and upon further investigation, I concluded no additional action was required and consider the issue closed.

If you have additional information that is germane to the above, I will be glad to review it."

Sounds like he decided not to do squat very quickly after receiving our initial letter but didn't bother letting us know until we wrote him again.

For anyone not familiar with the ordeal we went through with those two yay hoos, check out the links in the right column titled, "Article and letters about how Franklin County officials tried to block our adoption."

I love our country, but the government is a whole other matter.

And some day when I meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, I'm going to feel much better being the person who adopted the orphan, rather than the person who tried to prevent it.


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You Know You Work for the Government If...

When someone asks about what you do for a living, you lie.

You get really excited about a 2% pay raise.

Your biggest loss from a system crash is you lose your best jokes.

Your supervisor doesn't have the ability to do your job.

You sit in a cubicle smaller than your bedroom closet.

Computer specialists know less about computers than your teenager.

Lunch is like another scheduled meeting, only shorter.

You see a good looking person and know they are a visitor.

Management thinks a business trip with uncompensated mandatory weekend travel is a perk.

Although you have a telephone, pager, E-mail, FAX, company distribution, Fed-X, US mail and coworkers sitting right on the other side of the partition...communication is a continuing problem.

You know, and everyone that works with you knows, your performance is superior, but "satisfactory" is the highest level on the documented performance rating.

You work 200 hours for the $100 bonus check and jubilantly say "Oh wow, thanks!"

When workers screw up they are transferred to another office to be someone else's problem; when management screws up they are promoted.

Your boss' favorite lines are "when you get a few minutes," "in your spare time," "when you're freed up" and "I have an opportunity for you."

Training is something spoken about but never seen.

The worst possible reputation comes from being the initiator of a complaint.