THE LOW-DOWN ON THE TOWN Impudent, uncensored account By C. Castle

Clearing the Dirt Part II

(In the last Confidential, the editor was headed out the door to meet a high-ranking city official who claimed to have information leading to the identity of the writer of "The Dirt.")

The city official was folding T-shirts when the editor arrived.

"Chuck Allord must be involved," the official said, before the editor could sit down.

"He's already denied it," said the editor, taking a seat. "I asked him myself."

"He's got to be involved." The official dropped a folded shirt into the pile. "He was at the Social Services Commission meeting Monday night when they discussed the homeless cap, and the following day, the item appears in the new issue. You didn't know about that?"

"Yeah, we got slammed for not covering it."

"Marsha Moutrie is in 'The Dirt' saying there is no dollar amount on the homeless cap."

"'The Dirt' interviewed the City Attorney?"

"No, it was in the report they discussed at the meeting," the official said. "Allord was in the last row yelling out comments."

"But he does that at other meetings."

The official lookup up. "The only people there were the commissioners, Alan Toy and Chuck Allord."

The editor was silent.

"And Toy would never be involved," he finally said. "He's SMRR and the dirt hates SMRR."

"It had to be Allord. It came out Tuesday, and Allord was there Monday night. I'm not saying he wrote it, but Allord is the connection. He knows who writes 'The Dirt."

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Before we could work the Allord angle, a second tip came in, this one from a high-ranking civic leader who reported that "The Dirt's" writer had been sighted by one of his sources at a School Board meeting.

"She heard this guy whispering to a reporter, 'The next edition should be out soon.' And she heard the reporter say, 'Are you going to put your name on it next time?"

"So, who is it?" we asked, excited.

"There was a teacher who had taught at Lincoln and may have been a McKinley parent who looked like him. He was disgruntled when he wasn't offered a full-time job. He's part of a disgruntled group of parents now."

"If your source doesn't have a positive id," we said, "the reporter has to know."

"Word has it that the reporter does know. And the word is that unless he's shaved, he's bearded and he had a hat of some sort."

... to be continued.