Look on the bright side. The media’s finally starting to vet acquaintances of Barack Obama.

Wurzelbacher registered as an apprentice with the Ohio State Apprenticeship Council in November 2003, according to Dennis Evans, spokesman with the Department of Job and Family Services. Records show his training, which was sponsored by A & W Newell Co. of Toledo, should have been wrapped last year.

“We don’t have a record of completion,” Evans said. “All we know is that he registered in the program and has gone through to the point where we should have record of completion, but we don’t.”

And that’s not the only record that’s missing from Wurzelbacher’s file. He doesn’t have a plumbing license required by the city of Toledo to practice, according to a staffer with the Toledo Division of Building Inspection. Wurzelbacher, who now works for Newell Plumbing & Heating Co., said the owner, Al Newell, has a plumbing license and that “because he works for someone else, he doesn’t need a license.”

But even that’s not true, according to the Toledo Division of Building Inspection. Wurzelbacher can’t legally do plumbing work without a license, regardless of his boss’s certification.

A staff person with the Toledo Division of Building Inspection told On Call this afternoon that her division will contact Wurzelbacher to notify him that he can’t work without a license.

“We’re trying to track him down,” she said.