Glam Rocker to Step Down as OMES Frontman…

Wrap the solo, kill the lights and say good bye to the groupie— hair metal’s reign over Oklahoma government is coming to an end.

Earlier this week, news hit the wire that OMES director Rick Rose — the former lead singer of OKC glam metal act Erotic Suicide — will be stepping down from the agency amidst, surprise surprise, political controversy.

According to TLO super-fan Barbara “Babylon” Hoberock, Rose’s resignation comes just one week after Attorney General Drummond sent Governor Stitt a letter demanding he remove Rose from office.

I guess Gentner sent some purchasing requests through the OMES bureaucracy, and instead of fulfilling them like they’re supposed to, the agency – at the alleged behest of Stitt – ignored the requests and instead questioned the AG’s office spending.

Via Oklahoma Voice:

The head of a major Oklahoma agency announced his resignation Monday, days after the state’s chief law enforcement officer sent the governor a letter questioning his actions…

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond last week sent Stitt a letter accusing Rose of “refusing to process a statutorily authorized transaction for my office – presumably at your instruction.”

Drummond asked Stitt to remove Rose from office if he was not acting on a request from Stitt. Drummond said if the action came at Stitt’s request, the governor’s actions “represent a serious misuse of your authority, causing direct harm to the ability of my law enforcement agents to do their job.”

That's swell. As our friends in the forestry department have learned, Oklahoma agency directors are supposed to serve the governor first, his property second, and family and friends third, so kudos to Rose for reading that memo!

Seriously, name another Stitt crony that done a better job doing the Governor's dirty work than him.

Back to the story at hand, I wonder what specific “statutorily authorized transactions” Rose hid in the bunker from Gentner? The AG claims they caused "direct harm" to his “law enforcement agents," and hurt their ability to do their job. He had to be talking about bullet proof vests or night vision goggles, right?

Rose refused to process the purchase of vehicles for agents in his office, Drummond wrote.

Oh. Gentner needed new cars. That seems a little excessive, but then again – those elderly people aren’t going to disable themselves!

According to Babylon's Oklahoma Watch report, Gentner believes his letter played a role in Rose stepping down, but that may be a stretch.

With the year winding down and a transitory election on the horizon, this is about the time you start seeing all the loyalists, cronies, yes-men, grifters, brown-nosers, hacks and all other types of political scallywags scurry from the castle and jump back into the swamp, waiting for a new leader to emerge.

Combine that with Rose’s rock-and-roll tendency to burn out rather than fade away, and you can see why he lit a few pyrotechnics before exiting stage right.

Anyway, we wish Rose the best of luck in his continued employment journey. Will he go back to work for the oil industry, or simply wait and hope for his old boss Charles McCall to win the governor’s race and do the crony thing all over again? I guess we’ll wait around and see.

Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.