Deja Vu and Ex Parte

Deja Vu Fee and Ex Parte Contacts

(French or Latin, Both Can Bite)

(This is a cryptic message for one of our aldermen, normal folk [such as my readers] needn't pay any attention to it just skip this paragraph: At the meeting last night you should have learned about; "ex parte contacts," better watch it before you get the City sued—good luck with that, Bozo.)

Now for the meeting: The only real interesting thing that happened was Alderman Cheryl Kross bringing up the subject of business licenses, the city basically told her that they are mainly used as a revenue source. Kross identified that businesses pay Federal tax, State sales tax, County license fees, and City license fees. Kross said; "Wentzville's fee is just another layer upon layer of taxes and fees that our businesses have to pay." She wants to throw out the Business license from being a requirement and asked that it be a subject of a future work session.

Business license fees were increased on January 1, 2005 from $10 to $50, a 400% increase. It was a long story that I fought in another life when the city brought this forward. Andy McCown, City Administrator was instructed to "find more money" by an over-spending city. He said ; "a committee was formed to compare Wentzville's current business license fee to that of surrounding communities." I don't know what cities they searched but I checked seven cities around here at the same time and the highest fee I could find was $35 in St. Charles. No matter how I argued, they would not change their minds. Nothing was going to stop this money-grubbing City from banking an additional $30,000, so here we are seven years later finally figuring out what it was all about. Thank you Alderman Kross!

I was going to leave this subject alone but the truth just won't let me. I have to (once again) rat on Mayor candidate, Alderman Nick Guccione who just keeps excavating his pit of excrement which he desperately needs to stop digging. After I broke the news that his Moe Stooge and campaign manager, Donna Sherwood filed a verified false ethics violation against Mayor candidate Leon Tow, Guccione began fish-tailing as fast as he could. He went snivelling to Tow apologized that; "I didn't know she was doing that," sob, sob. Of course, he had to look sincere with tears in his eyes so Tow wouldn't file an ethics violation against him for doing the exact same thing that he accused Tow of doing, and Tow's claim would stick. It's hard to find good help eh Nick? Leon Tow is too classy and too busy dealing with his own election plan to run a revenge campaign and be distracted by Mickey Mouse pranks so he accepted Guccione's apology. (Damn it Leon, kick his ass, give him a taste of his own medicine, I'll give you five bucks.)

But that's not the end of the story. I received two phone calls this morning and both people had talked to Guccione. It's interesting that when they asked him about it, Guccione replied: "I told her not to do it but she did it anyway." This Guccione is a piece of work! He definitely needs to brush up on his lying skills, he does it a lot and if he's going to do it as often as he does, he needs to keep them straight. What really happened was probably this: Without researching the details, Sherwood told Guccione: "We can really get him on this one" and Guccione replied: "Go get him!" It doesn't take a lot of brains to be a complete idiot!