Missouri now knows how Lake Lotawana’s CID went bust. It just can’t punish anybody.

• Dejmal
• Things went downhill fast for the Lake Lotawana CID.

On a blustery late-October evening, a parade of SUVs, sedans and trucks weaved through the immaculately paved roads of a subdivision just south of the city of Lake Lotawana. They motored past a beige stone sign proclaiming the name of the expanse – Foxberry Estates – and down a divided street with a row of a dozen or so three-bulb streetlights guiding them toward a little building called “the clubhouse.”

Inside the clubhouse, about 30 residents of the Lake Lotawana Community Improvement District walked past a tabletop map showing the unrealized Foxberry empire. In the building’s conference room, the neighbors gathered to listen to Deputy State Auditor Harry Otto debrief them on the failed CID.

There was little small talk as the neighbors flipped through copies of the audit report. One gray-haired man in a suit muttered “wow” to himself as he read the damning findings. Then Otto, flanked by two other state auditors, began unpacking the political and domestic ramifications of the CID’s collapse – starting with the announcement that the CID was the only such subdivision in Missouri ever to file for bankruptcy.

“For better or for worse, and I guess for worse, you’re a little bit unique to be in the condition you’re in,” he told his audience.