By Clarissa Scheffler-Slater – in her private capacity
Let me be blunt. This “residency challenge” against Law Director Brandon Gobrecht is not about voting records or where he sleeps at night. It’s a political hit job engineered by Council President Kurt Fankhauser, a man hellbent on punishing anyone who won’t stroke his ego, enable his delusions, or hand him more power.
This has nothing to do with law, and everything to do with control. Kurt has weaponized his public office, his business (Wavelinc), and I believe taxpayer-funded infrastructure to stalk, harass, and intimidate those he can’t manipulate. And he has been fixated on me since my first public participation in April of last year.
Let’s talk facts:
- He threatened the city’s Law Director for doing his job.
- He physically grabbed the gavel out of his hand on the council floor—on camera—which appears to meet the textbook definition of civil assault.
- He subpoenaed my father and coworkers, dragging them into his circus just to embarrass me over a relationship we’ve never once tried to hide.
- He’s parked outside my home to take photos.
- He’s followed me and Brandon to volunteer events and a lunch date, voyeuristically hiding behind walls to take pictures.
- He distributed photos of me, Brandon, and my kids at a literal T-ball game—as if parenting is shameful now.
- He used the city email to try to get a colleague fired from her real job, not her council role. Her actual employment.
- He convinced his girlfriend-turned-alleged-interstate-drug-trafficker to harass that same councilmember.
- He enlisted a disgraced former councilwoman, now facing multiple felony theft charges related to a nonprofit and theft from a mentally disabled individual, and the aforementioned girlfriend to file a fake complaint against me, when I was still a private citizen, all to try and sabotage my education.
- He blurred the line between public office and private profit so badly that no one even knows where his authority ends and his manipulation begins.
- And most disgusting of all? He and his associates have sold sexually explicit stick-figure car decals of me and the Law Director. Yes, sexually explicit cartoons. Of a colleague. In public. Circulated where children can see them. So much for “conservative values”, right?
So, where are the consequences? Why are the Board of Elections, county offices, and state authorities still treating this man as if he’s acting in good faith? How many agencies have accepted his “discounted services” or free tech “donations” and now look the other way?
Let me be clear: I have the receipts. But I’m not playing his game. I won’t post them to Facebook or hand them to reporters. I’ll give them to the authorities if and when they grow the spine to do their jobs.
It is no longer political warfare; his actions are lunacy and wanton disregard of human decency.
His behavior is reckless, and it’s dangerous. Kurt Fankhauser is abusing his power to stalk, coerce, retaliate, and silence. And he’s gotten away with it for too long because people are afraid. I’m not.
Kurt seems to think dragging my private life into the spotlight will shame me into silence. That attacking who I date, who I am or am or am not sharing my home with, or what I do behind closed doors will scare me off.
Spoiler alert: it won’t. I’m not ashamed of my life. I’m proud of the peace, love, and strength I’ve built, even while he’s worked overtime to destroy it.
He once called me Bucyrus’s “worst mistake.” I call that projection.
He appears to be the only one motivated enough to spend tens of thousands of dollars trying to keep one woman out of office. One woman asked three simple questions:
- What can we do as a city to protect our children better?
- Why does the council president control the city’s surveillance system?
- And why did no one report when he requested the timesheets of a minor employee who filed a civil protection order against him for sexually inappropriate behavior?
Any other city? It would’ve been a headline. Any other official? Investigations would’ve been launched on the spot. But not in Bucyrus. Not when Kurt’s name is on the email.
That’s the real reason behind his obsession. Not ethics. Not law. Not decency.
Just power. Cameras. Servers. Control.
So let’s get real. If anyone in the county or the state government still believes this is about a water bill or a voting address, then they are willfully ignorant or complicit. I am calling on the appropriate authorities to do their damn jobs.
Because if they don’t? Then they’re protecting him.
In all reality, I am very tired of this. I have huge goals and aspirations for my 6 months left on council; however, my efforts and those of my fellow officials are constantly derailed by the personal opinions and vendettas of a man who can’t impartially run a meeting, like he was elected to do. So here we are, forced through an abuse of process, further tracking his pattern of engaging in corrupt behavior personally, professionally, and politically.
I am a citizen. I am a mother. I am a Councilwoman. I am not afraid of Kurt Fankhauser. No one should be. Kurt told me once, “If you ignore a bully, they’ll eventually go away.” Bullies don’t disappear; instead, they find a new target, a new obsession, and rinse and repeat their abuse. I don’t negotiate with those who blackmail, extort, and coerce others to do their will. Those tactics don’t work on me. At the end of the day, he is one man with an unhealthy obsession with a woman who won’t back down.
Maybe that’s what really terrifies him.
But instead of facing that truth, he’s holding the whole city hostage—sabotaging cost-saving measures, undermining basic government operations, and making sure no decent citizen ever wants to serve this city again.
If we let him win, we deserve what we get.
But I’m not letting him win. Not now. Not ever.
