Talkers were asked to not print anything at the time because there were still some highly sensitive personal issues to consider, and that it pretty much wasn't good for anybody, specifically Rollins, to report on the matter. And it was, legitimately, an internal personnel matter. With all the details, and after evaluating the rationale expressed by insiders when pressed for comment, the story was shelved for a more appropriate time.

So, by now, anybody who cared to know what happened — or paid any attention whatsoever to personnel moves at the Chamber and posseses any functioning sense of logic — knows how the Chamber president's personal e-mail to a close friend and confidant made it out of his office computer and into the hands of the Huntersville Town Board and, by design, into the public domain via media outlets which, by no coincidence, did not include this one.

Ahh, but the trail that leads from Rollins' purloining of the e-mail through a series of phony and/or pirated e-mail accounts and into the waiting hands of only the Huntersville Town Board and no other local elected officials is of significantly higher intrigue. Just who had it in enough for Russell and his advocacy on behalf of Visit Lake Norman's funding — and just who Rollins knew who would eagerly and willingly serve as a bridge between herself and Huntersville electeds — is something inquiring Talkers still want to know.

And if they find out, they'll be sure to tell you first.

A real wise guy

Prior to Wednesday evening's joint meeting of the Red Line Task Force and the Metropolitan Transit Commission, Talkers spotted Cornelius Mayor Jeff Tarte sporting what appeared to be a week-long crop of whiskers. As it turns out, he told a Talker, he had a starring role as one of the Three Wise Men for one night only in the live nativity at Christmas in Davidson.

No one could mistake him for Grizzly Adams, but it was an impressive new look for the always dapper and clean-shaven Tarte, who added it was coming off once his acting career ended last weekend because, he was told, it makes him "look old and fat."

So don't look for a career change after he's through bringing gold, frankincense and/or myhrr to the earthly embodiment of the Christ child. He'll be back to his mayoral duties, fresh-faced, soon enough, just in time for duck hunters on Lake Norman to think of him as a different kind of wise guy.