Roeland Park Mayor Adrienne Foster is fighting with her bank over allegedly unpaid bills -- and she's fighting the political rumor mill.
After filing a lawsuit in January of this year claiming that Foster owed $7,802.31, Discover Bank won a judgment against her for the amount
plus interest and attorney's fees. According to Johnson County court records, Foster failed to show up for a
November 3 hearing.
Then, on December 10, a garnishment was filed against Foster to recover the money.
Foster tells The Pitch that she's disputing the charges and only found out about the garnishment from the city clerk an hour before a call from The Pitch. She says she hired an attorney to handle the case but hadn't heard anything about it for a couple of months.
"They're trying to charge me over $7,000 in interest and fees, which is not correct," Foster says. "They upped the amount in the minimum payment, and then they started
charging me all kinds of fees. ... They were definitely
taking advantage of me. It wasn't right."
Foster says she had set up a direct withdrawal with Discover,
which had been taking money out of her checking account for two years.
"The
minimum amount changed, and instead of them notifying me ... they continued to take it out of my account
and then assessed fees," Foster says.
Foster says she thought everything was fine until she received a letter from Discover about 15 months later.
Foster
says her original balance was only about $2,000.
"I will definitely get that
cleared up immediately," Foster says. "Like I told the judge, I will
pay the exact amount that is due. I will pay it today.' I told him
that in August." But first, she says, she wants Discover to prove that it tried
to contact her about the new fees.
As for the garnishment order, Foster says Roeland Park is returning it because
her monthly stipend from the city isn't enough to pay for the
garnishment.
This wasn't the first time that Foster had been sued in Johnson County civil court.
In October 2007, a dentist named Shelly Galvins sued Foster and her husband, Stephen Foster, for $3,758.68. The case was settled out of court in February 2008.
"I've
got nothing to hide," Foster says. "Things happen to people. They
dispute their dentist bills. They dispute all kinds of things. I know
whoever sent you that tip is just not a very nice person. I'm sure he's
a very jealous person. I'm a politician so I've got nothing to hide."
Foster also says she is not running for retiring Kansas state Sen. David Wysong's seat. She says she contacted newspapers last week, asking
them to call her after she started hearing rumors that she planned to run for Wysong's seat. She says the only one who did call was statehouse reporter Martin Hawver. She told him that she "may" run.
The Kansas City Star's PrimeBuzz blog reported that she was running, but she wasn't.
"I
couldn't get permission in time from my employer," Foster says. "I'm a contract
employee with New York Life, and so in order to keep my job, I wanted
to comply with all of their rules and regulations, and we just couldn't
get it done fast enough." Getting clearance would have taken her about a month, she says.
"It's important for me to have a job in this tough economic time," Foster adds.
Foster isn't sure how a press release announcing her candidacy was released.
"I
think people were just jumping the gun. It happens. I'm
very grateful for even being considered and people really wanting me to
run. But I really enjoy being the mayor. I have a lot of things I want
to accomplish in our city."
One issue that was sure to come up in a primary election would have been Foster's Kansas voter registration application. In August 2003, Foster registered as a Republican. However, she switched her
party affiliation to Democrat in February 2008.
"I switched
over to vote for President Obama [in the primary election]," Foster says. "I believed he was a better candidate
than Hillary Clinton. So I wanted to do that and I did."
Foster jumped back to Republican in July 2008.
She says she didn't vote for Obama in the general election.
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The pitch needs to follow up on this story and find out what a liar she is. You don't tell the JUDGE how much you want to pay and you haven't heard anything for 2 mos. Also questions should be asked how she paid off a $7000+ debt to the county when she owed back taxes for almost three years and now suddenly they are paid now that she has introduce an unsolicited company to Roeland Park to build an unwanted new city hall. She ran on ONE issue only....NO NEW CITY HALL. The chance she got she stabbed us residents in the back and tried to pass the buck. She has been actively under the table lobbying this group. HMMMM makes you wonder has any graft been exchanged????? HMMMM think about it.... A non working husband....five children.... and a commission only insurance job where she is not even a licensed agent........Things that make you go HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!
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