Comer missed audit meeting

The businessman who disappeared in Nelson County last week vanished the same day he was supposed to meet about an audit to answer questions about the Glenmore Community Association’s finance records, the association’s president said Monday.

“The auditors were requesting information that Mike had failed to deliver,” President Trevor Joscelyne said. “That data did not materialize, because Mike didn’t materialize for that meeting, so that gave us some cause for concern.”

Authorities undertook a massive search six days ago for Michael Comer, through thousands of wooded acres and trails in Wintergreen, after his car was spotted — with the doors unlocked and keys inside — near his Wintergreen vacation home. But the search was called off the next day.

Investigators are still calling Comer a “missing person” and have released few details about the ongoing investigation. The Wintergreen Police Department and Nelson County Sheriff’s Office are heading the investigation, with assistance from the Albemarle County Police Depar-tment, Wintergreen Sgt. Steve Southworth said.

Southworth declined to say whether the investigation is probing whether Comer, the Glenmore Community Association’s treasurer, could have left the area because of a financial dilemma.

“We’re investigating every angle right now,” Southworth said. “But I can’t comment on the specifics of the investigation.”

Acting with “an abundance of caution,” the association has replaced Comer as treasurer, Joscelyne said. Also, the association “extended the scope of the external audit to review account transactions and balances both prior to and beyond the 2008 audit year,” Joscelyne wrote in a statement.

The extended audit is expected to be complete in about two weeks.

“There are some transactions which we have some questions about,” Joscelyne said.

As treasurer of the homeowners association for Glenmore residents the past several years, Comer oversaw hundreds of thousands of dollars. The association represents more than 700 homes, has an annual budget of $732,000, and had reported $983,000 in financial assets in late May, according to Joscelyne.

Joscelyne said that the association had planned for months to replace Comer later this year. The decision to replace Comer and conduct an audit was not spurred by any suspicion that Comer wasn’t doing his job properly or was mishandling association money, Joscelyne said.

Joscelyne said it also made sense to replace Comer as treasurer this past week because someone needed to fill the role of treasurer, to keep the association’s financial operation intact.

Police say that Comer had called his mother at 9:30 a.m. the day he went missing, and family members weren’t able to reach him thereafter.

However, Joscelyne said that Comer had called his secretary sometime prior to the 10:30 a.m. meeting Wednesday, “to tell us he would be a few minutes late to the meeting.”

Comer, 45, has a wife and two children. Multiple messages left as his home have not been returned.

At the time of his disappearance, Comer was the president of Glenmore Country Club, a privately owned club east of Shadwell, and was the project manager for Glenmore Associates, the developer of the Glenmore community and other commercial projects.

This article was edited for clarity.