VIENNA — A dispute over how a newly acquired boat, motor and trailer were titled led to a tense exchange between Sheriff Mark Morgan and the Maries County Commission during its Jan. 8 meeting, with questions raised about statutory authority, internal policy and whether a signed legal document was improperly altered.

The disagreement centered on a title originally signed by Morgan identifying the owner of the boat as the Maries County Sheriff’s Office, which was later changed by Maries County Deputy Clerk Renee Kottwitz to list Maries County as the owner instead.

“The issue is, it’s a signed title,” Morgan said. “As an elected official, I signed the title. We can’t just change the title. So the correct thing would be to have a discussion with me.”

Morgan told commissioners the distinction between titling property to the county versus the sheriff’s office is not merely administrative, but a necessary safeguard between independently elected offices.

“If they’re titled to Maries County, then you can sell every patrol car I’ve got, and I can’t say a word about it,” Morgan said. “Right now, you need my signature on the title to sell a patrol car, so it’s just a checks and balances thing.”

Commissioners responded by maintaining that equipment purchased with county funds should be titled uniformly to Maries County, regardless of which office uses it.

“Well, this is a checks and balances too. That way the county knows every vehicle they got. It’s county stuff,” Eastern District Commission Doug Drewel said. “No matter if it’s the sheriff’s office, road department or assessor’s office, it’s all county taxpayer stuff.”

“Three new commissioners can come in here and say they want to defund the sheriff’s office,” Morgan said.

Drewel pointed at Western District Commissioner Pat Kleffner.

“What if we wanted to defund his office over there, his road department? We could do that too,” Drewel said.

“I can’t worry about his office,” Morgan said. “I’ve got to worry about my office.”

Drewel said, “But it’s the same. It will always be the same.”

“I don’t come up here half-cocked,” Morgan said. “You talk to Sheriff Bonham? He keeps all his titles.”

“That’s Osage County,” Drewel said.

“That’s correct,” Morgan said.

“Yeah, this is Maries County,” Drewel said.

“No (expletive deleted), Doug,” Morgan said. “I know that.”

“We don’t care what they do,” Drewel said. “They can do anything they want to do. That’s their county.”

The exchange intensified when Morgan told the commissioners the signed title and application were replaced without his knowledge, and that altering a signed title without authorization constitutes a violation of state law.

“You can’t change the title, so if I want to, I can have DOR (Department of Revenue) come down here, do an investigation and drop six probable cause statements on every affidavit that was changed,” Morgan said, “There’s a crime that’s been committed here. I’m trying to handle it delicately.”

“I’m not saying there wasn’t,” Drewel said. “Maybe it was overlooked.”

“Don’t be a smart (expletive deleted) about it, let’s just have a conversation,” Morgan said.

Kottwitz said, “I did it. But I did it because that’s what I was told prior.”

Morgan said, “I don’t think you intentionally did anything wrong, okay? But if they’re trying to say that this is the correct way of doing this, I got statutes to say you can’t change the title once I’ve signed it.”

Kleffner said, “Should that boat have been put in Maries County’s name before you got the title or, I mean, according to what we recommended here, or what we said in our policy, should it have been put in Maries County?”

“That’s what we’re going back to,” Drewel said. “At the first of the year we said we was going to put all the stuff in the county’s name.”

“Maries County Sheriff’s Office should retain ownership of all the equipment that it purchases with its allocated budget. That’s how it’s always been in Maries County,” Morgan said. “Now we want to change it. But my point is, I contacted other sheriffs because I want to see how they did it. I want to see what their setup is, and that’s why I bring up Osage County. Because I was just curious. Maybe this is the standard. Maybe we’re the oddball and no other sheriff in the state keeps their vehicles titled to the sheriff’s office, not the individual Sheriff, but the office, the office holder, the elected sheriff, whoever that may be. You see my point. That’s why I bring up Osage County.”

Morgan said that he had given the commissioners an up to date list of equipment that he made to the best of his ability.

“I’m the most upfront that I can be, so I don’t understand why we need to play these games with the title,” Morgan said.

“I don’t think anybody played no game. She said that she done it,” Drewel said. “We didn’t know she done it. She said she done it, she thought she was supposed to do it. I don’t think there’s no game there.”

“Nobody even called me,” Morgan said. “You’re trying to say you got a title here, and you think there’s an issue with this title, and you didn’t think, ‘let me call Mark and let me find out what’s going on.’”

Morgan said that the change caused a series of steps to be taken before the title could be obtained.

“But we go down there and go through a big rigmarole, they had to actually do an affidavit to change all this stuff, and basically shred my initial application that I signed, and then create a new application and send that to the state,” Morgan said.

“Did you know about our policy about all the titles being in Maries County?” Kleffner said.

“I knew about the policy that all the titles will be retained at the circuit clerk,” Morgan said. “I’m not trying to be a jerk about this, but I’m a separate entity. I don’t necessarily follow the county’s policy. Like you guys can make your policies, and that’s fine, but I have my own policies, and I have my own office that I run. I’m separate like that for a very specific reason.”

“You got control of it, but it all should be titled to the county,” Drewel said. “You got control of this stuff, because it’s your stuff. Me and Pat’s not gonna run down there, grab us a police car and take off with it.”

“But my point is, there’s nothing stops you from doing that. There’s not one thing that stops you,” Morgan said. “Listen, you guys can sell every patrol car I have, and there’s not one thing I can do about it. You can decide the sheriff’s office needs four cars. I can’t have that.”

“But, we’re not going to,” Drewel said. “At the same token, we could go over to Pat’s shed and say, ‘you don’t need three dump trucks. You’re going to use one, sell the other two.’”

“I understand your concern, but you got to see my concerns, because none of us are guaranteed to be here tomorrow,” Morgan said.

“You’re saying you don’t trust the commissioners. No matter who they are. You don’t trust them,” Drewel said. “So, you’re afraid that the commissioners are going to run off with your stuff.”

Morgan repeated, “I believe in checks and balances, Doug.”

Morgan also said that he didn’t believe Kottwitz did anything wrong.

“I think she’s doing what she thought was supposed to be doing,” Morgan said, referencing Kottwitz. “But my thing is, when those titles come in, I want to take them down to the DMV. I want to fix this error, and that’s how I’m chalking it up to. Not an intentional crime. A clerical error, as a misunderstanding, is how I’m chalking it up to. Does that make sense?”

Morgan outlined two options for resolving the issue. Option one involved correcting the titles to reflect ownership by the Maries County Sheriff’s Office. Option two was he would have DOR review whether the title change was legally permissible.

“I see two ways going forward. When the titles come in, give me the titles. I’ll take them back down to the DMV. We’ll amend them for correction to the title. Let’s send them back to the state and then re-title them to The Maries County Sheriff’s Office,” Morgan said. “They go back with the rest of the titles over there, just like the rest of the patrol cars. Or you can say, ‘No, I disagree.’ And then I’m going to ask the department of revenue to launch an investigation into this, to deem essentially, whether changing that title was legal or not, and then let them handle it however they want to handle it.”

“You’re talking about the title on the boat and the trailer?” Drewel said.

Morgan said, “Essentially three titles, since they title outboard motors in Missouri. You don’t believe anything I’m saying, we can have DOR come down and give their opinion on the matter, but they’re just going to look at the legality of changing the title that’s been signed by an elected official after the fact, without his knowledge.”

Morgan reiterated that he would call for an investigation if the commissioners didn’t cooperate.

“If you guys don’t want to willingly help me fix it, then I’m just going to tell them what my

problem is and have them fix it on their end,” Morgan said.

Commissioners disputed that characterization, stating the change was made under a policy adopted during a Jan. 27, 2025 meeting requiring newly purchased equipment to be titled to Maries County. A policy that commissioners said Morgan was present for when it was made.

“She (Kottwitz) did it because that’s what she thought she was supposed to do,” Drewel said. “I don’t think there’s any intent here.”

Morgan said that he believed it was a clerical error.

Commissioners agreed the issue required further review and said the underlying policy would need to be examined before any corrective action could be taken.

“The first thing that’s got to be done is the policy has got to be changed, if we decide to,” Drewel said. “We need to sit back and think about this.”

During the Jan. 12 meeting of the commissioners, a new policy was voted on and approved to have all county equipment previously titled to other county offices be transferred solely to Maries County, with the expense coming out of general funds.