Put Up or Shut Up

On the 18th of January I posted "Where The Buck Stops." In this blog I wrote about the Mayor of Wentzville, Nick Guccione who does nothing, shifts blame, and never takes responsibility for anything. In that same blog I quoted Guccione who announced that Newstime will be publishing weekly, he said: "Newstime will fix any misinformation out there."

Inwardly I laughed at him for making that statement because I knew that The Wentzvillian was eating his lunch. Last year about this time, he and his ex-Judge Carter friend started a blog that they thought would shut me up by posting their version of the truth. They figured that by exposing me as a citizen I would discontinue my blog and slip into the night. They were going to start a news service written by Carter, which would counter my posts with their version of facts but they overlooked two very important facts:  #1, No one read or cared about their online version of a newspaper and #2 when you put two anal-retentive nit-wits together you get a disaster.

I enjoy Guccione's blathering in Newstime every week and I'm glad he's found a hobby. Unfortunately for the taxpayers I found out that we are paying for it. If Guccione were writing it and giving it to Newstime I'd be fine with it but he's not, our Publicist does, and she charges the City by the article. I don't remember the Aldermen approving this expenditure where our Mayor could have the City pay for his weekly "Gooch Truth" article. If our aldermen did approve it, our taxpayers should be outraged, after all, isn't this group of aldermen hanging their hats on cost-cutting?

Should the taxpayers be charged for weekly articles supposedly written by our Mayor? I don't see this as necessary especially since he has a paid article in our city newsletter The Vision. No other Mayor in the history of Wentzville has had a spending latitude such as this, he should be paying for this himself, or hire a writer out of his own pocket.

This is another example of Guccione over-stepping his authority and handing the taxpayers the check in the process. If you agree, I urge you, my fellow citizens, to call your Aldermen, they need to hear what we think. Guccione has no skin in the game and no right to put taxpayers on the hook for his political agenda, it's bad enough we have to pay him a salary. It's time for the Gooch to put up or shut up!

(Several of you have asked me how many hits are there on The Wentzvillian, in 2012, I received just over 58,000 pageviews, Thanks to all of you who read The Wentzvillian!)

Issues of Importance?

The talk of street name changes has brought city hall to the realization that the citizens of Wentzville do not want any of their historic street names changed. Due to the outcry of these citizens, the Aldermen are in agreement that the current street names will be preserved. With the fear of changing our street names behind us, the stakeholders have begun breathing easier, but hold on.

From early on, there was the mention of something called "Memorial Street Names," but it didn't get much traction until recently when the name change proposal failed. After looking into the subject I found that when a name is memorialized on a given street it places the memorialized name on a green street sign just above the existing street name. What we would see is; Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd. on a green street sign above the existing sign, for example let's say; Pearce Blvd. or Allen Street, or pick a name. This system would relieve residents or businesses the costly address change resulting from a regular street name change and allow the recognition of another important benefactor to the city on a high visibility street.

At the end of the board of aldermen meeting of January 23rd, the board prioritized the work session topic list, one of the topics near the top of the list was; "Memorial Street Names. Alderman of Ward 2, Sonya Shyrock, asked that it be moved more toward the bottom allowing for more important items to the city be addressed first. Interim City Administrator, George Kolb stated that it would not take much time to address the issue and the light bulbs over my head went on.

Today, the city of Wentzville has no code or ordinance allowing for the implementation of a "Memorial Street Name," but one person is pushing for the new ordinance revision to allow it, that person is our Interum City Administrator, George Kolb. Personally, I don't believe the citizens of Wentzville would like this any more than a regular street name change. The problem is this, if the Aldermen revise the ordinance to include "Memorial Street Names," anytime a group wants one they just need to apply and if the name meets the criteria of the new ordinance it would need to be considered. Today because it doesn't exist, the City just needs to reply; "Sorry." If this becomes part of our code, the citizens of Wentzville will need to be constantly vigilant or they could see green memorial sings popping up all over town.

I think Alderman Shyrock "gets it," she knows the residents don't want this and that it should be at the bottom of any list of potential codification. In my opinion, the item should be removed from the list all together and if my readers agree they should call their Aldermen. I think the aldermen today are concerned with important items and will continue pushing it to the bottom but I also believe as long as George Kolb is the CA he will continue trying to get it to rise to the top.

Kolb is scheduled to leave his position on February 15th, I hope the City doesn't run out of list prior to him being replaced. Our Aldertmen need to keep their course of addressing important issues and push feel-good legislation to the bottom of their list. Oh and, thank you Alderman Shyrock!

Another One Bites the Dust or What's That Smell?

George Kolb, Interim City Administrator takes the fall for Mayor Nick Guccione's lack of leadership, his contract cut short with his last day February 15th. That makes three Wentzville city employees he's personally sent to the unemployment line to cover for the simple fact that he does not know how to function in his own capacity. Although I suspect the infraction that cost Kolb his job goes much deeper I can see where Guccione would have an easier time terminating a short-time contract employee over a long-time city person but this is merely a Band-Aid and ignores the real problem. So the score for Guccione is: Gooch 3, Wentzville employees -3, he's winning. For a touchy-feely mayor who claims to believe in jobs he sure has a funny way of showing it, but of course it would be too much to ask him to fall on his own sword.

So, what's the solution? As anyone who reads the Wentzvillian knows, I firmly believe Mayor Guccione negligent, derelict, and incompitent—you cannot fix stupid. In my opinion, policy and employees of any business, including cities do not mesh well, after all, "rules are made to be broken." Is rule-breaking the problem? No, it's a symptom of the real problem—poor management. Unfortunately, when our top management is occupied spewing political platitudes, blaming others for his shortcomings, and busy trying to get aldermen elected who agree with him, it doesn't leave much time to manage a city of 29,000. Of course this thought alludes to having a manager who knows how to manage, in our case we do not. So what's the solution? In order to find the answer, we need to have a manager who has experience in managing people, our mayor is a first-rate butcher but cutting up chickens and being friends with the employees is not good management.

There's an old saying in the military and is also used in industry to bring order to employee disorder; "Fire one for effect." By firing a person other employees of the business become more conscience about their jobs. Mayor Guccione has fired three employees in his first ten months in office and is still having problems, so what's the problem? Nick Guccione is the problem.

It's difficult to remove a mayor from office but that's what needs to be done in Wentzville. Our mayor has no inclination to learn how to manage and incapable of learning how to run a city. The aldermen who are enabling Guccione's poor management skills need to stop now. The Board of Aldermen meeting of January 23rd was the first time I've seen Guccione under pressure since his campaign ethics discussions shortly after he was elected. The Aldermen were relentless and Guccione almost soiled himself. If Wentzville wants a solution, our aldermen are going to have to quit doing his job for him and make him responsible for poor management by keeping up the pressure even to the extent of public embarrassment. If they do, sooner or later they will smell something coming from his direction and know they are on the right track.

Why Am I Naked and Who Are All These People?

Every time I think a meeting will be boring I'm awakened by something of great tumult, the Board of Aldermen meeting of January 23rd was one of those. It all started about the time I was wondering why I came to the meeting at all, about three-quarters of the way through under "Unfinished Business, Item 5. (ID#4331) Church Street."

By the city's schedule, Church Street was supposed to be completed by January 15th but the Aldermen en mass were asking about street lights, stop signs, and amenities, and why they weren't installed—at least I thought that's what they were asking about. It seems that someone on the city staff prematurely terminated the contract of the oversight company; Cochran Engineering, I assume to save money and come in under budget. Normally this would be a feather in the cap of the Public Works Department however, in this instance it's a boo-boo.  All eyes turned to Mayor Guccione; "I'm kinda like the CEO of the City but someone made a decision without informing me." "Kinda like the CEO?" I'm asking myself, who's in charge of the City if the staff can make contractual decisions in the field without telling anyone, and we have a "kinda like the CEO?" Ohhhh! We have "kinda like" somebody in charge—problem identified.

Alderman of Ward 2, Chris Gard went on the offense saying; "Contract parameters were changed and no one was told. Not following policy can cost you your job! Mr. Mayor, this falls to you!" Mayor Nicompoop looked like the girl who woke up after a night of drinking and said; "Why am I naked and who are all of these people?" For a few minutes things got tense between the Aldermen and the Mayor and staff. Guccione defended himself by saying;"The company was told to stand down and I wasn't told,"

Every Alderman chimed in on this item with varying degrees of anger except my Aldermanequin of Ward 3, Michael Hays. I have to assume he didn't want to pig-pile on his buddy and benefactor Mayor Guccione. Giving Hays the benefit of the doubt, he may not have realized the severity of the discussion but it's his job to know it's a break-down in the system when someone on staff is violating policy. Throwing the staff under the bus Guccione reiterated, "I didn't know this was happening, I found out about it at this meeting," Alderman of Ward 1, Forrest Gossett said, "The process is busted!"

The Aldermen told Mayor Guccione in no uncertain terms, "Mr. Mayor, you need to take action!" They were a lot nicer than I would have been, I might have said something like, get off your dumb-ass and get a grip on the position that you so fiercely cheated to get elected to! Some think I'm a little bombastic but when we have a mayor who cannot or will not control his staff then it's time he be relieved of—and I use this word lightly—command. Mayor Guccione has achieved nothing in his first ten months of—and I use this word lightly—leadership. Guccione is derelict and it's time for these Aldermen to take action—anoint this turkey in the impeachment oil, give him the air, can his ass, fire him, do anything but keep the cancer he brings from killing our City.

What I gather from last night's meeting, someone will, or should be fired. I am not going to speculate about who it may be but I do know that two people have already lost their jobs with the city for similar offenses and it was directly due to a lack of leadership. Mayor Puccione, how many more good people will be in the unemployment line before you admit that you don't have a clue what being Mayor means?

I'm sick of this mess in our City, Guccione should never have been elected. Anyone with any degree of intelligence who didn't agree when they voted for him should know by now. Our mayor is like a fungus growing on the center seat in the city hall chamber, if something isn't done soon his disease will spread like fire on a Christmas Tree, or should I say, Holiday Tree—I certainly don't want to be politically incorrect.

The Race Is On

In just a couple of months it'll be election time again  and now that the deadline for the registration of candidates is passed we need to look at those who have decided to seek office. Last year's slate was filled with characters steeped in controversy, fortunately most of them have decided not to defile this election. Unfortunately for us, the leader of the underhanded hoard of last year's preditors will remain seated in City Hall for three more agonizing years—maybe. This devious group jumped on honest candidates like a school of piranhas on a naked missionary. Ethics was a huge concern last year and because Alderman Nick Guccione ran one of the most vile and unethical campaigns in the history of Wentzville the Aldermen found it necessary to amend municipal code. Coincidentally, that ordinance providing for a new "code of ethics" and adopting a "political activity policy" was made law last Wednesday evening. That ordinance change will implement legal recourse should another band of knuckleheads want to abuse the system. To my way of thinking, since it was created to stop unethical behavior like that which our mayor used to get elected it should be called the Anti-Guccione Policy.

The Horse Race

Ward 1

Cheryl Kross (Incumbent): Alderman Kross is seeking her third term representing the residents of Ward 1. She is credited with being the first Alderman to crack the ultra-liberal nut(s) that had a grip on our city for too many years. She took the chauvinistic taunting of Mayor Lambi for three years and hung in trying to bring some sense of order to an extremely dysfunctional Board of Aldermen led by the Lurchettes. Her conservative values led to Wentzville's budget finally being free of excessive waste and feel-good spending. She has been one of Wentzville's most responsive to concerns of her constituents regardless of the magnitude of importance. In my opinion, Alderman Kross has earned a third term.

Robert Hussey: Mr Hussey is a friend of Mayor Guccione. He has experience with being a City Administrator and Guccione tried to get him in the back door by attempting to influence the Alderman. He was told that applicants are not supposed to have any contact with the Mayor or Aldermen through the process yet he still knocked on one alderman's door and the Gooch is still trying to push him into City Hall. Since he is supported by a mayor that I find totally incompetent, I urge voters to disregard this candidate.

Ward 2



Chris Gard (Unopposed)

Ward 3



Darrel Lackey: Lackey is a long time resident of Wentzville and a very active community-minded citizen. He is a financial advisor with an office here in the Trinity Building and very informed regarding city politics. His record of public service is long:.

• Wentzville Alderman, Ward 2 1987-1992 (3 terms)
• Wentzville Mayor 1992-1995 (2 terms)
• Wentzville Alderman, Ward 3 2002-2006 (2 terms)
• Wentzville Township Committeeman 2004-2010 (3 terms)

Darrel Lacky has been and will again be a strong asset to Wentzville City Hall. My vote goes for Darrel Lackey to be Alderman of Ward 3.

Michael (Mike) Hays (appointed by Mayor): Most people who are familiar with Wentzville politics know the story about Hays. He is the person that Mayor Guccione was talking about when trying to fill his vacated Ward 3 seat; "It's my appointment, it's my appointment, bla, bla, bla." The Aldermen rejected this appointment until Guccione finally appointed John Luby, who was accepted. A month later Luby hands in his resignation, walked off the job, and Guccione's crying started all over again; "It's my appointment, it's my appointment, bla, bla, bla." Rather than listen to Guccione's constant whining they approved his appointment and Hays was installed. I am represented in Ward 3 by someone who withdrew from the general election of 2012 in anticipation of Guccione getting elected and being appointed by the mayor to his vacated seat. I disapprove of Hays representing me and had he not withdrawn last year he would have been crushed by Alderman Rick Stokes reelection. Guccione will use all his resources getting his buddy elected whether it's good for the city or not.

Linda L. Wright: Ms. Wright in unknown in Wentzville politics.

Municipal Judge

Steve Martin: (Incumbent) Judge Martin was elected against a field of six candidates in the 2011 election. His service over the past two years has resulted in the restoration of the Police budget which was almost destroyed by his predecessor. He is revered by the Police Department and City Hall as a good and fair judge. The people should be proud to have Judge Martin on our Municipal Court bench.

Michael Carter: Michael Carter served as Wentzville's Municipal Judge from 2009 to 2011 when he lost his reelection bid to our current Judge Martin. Carter was disliked by our Police Department due to his habit of reducing fines set by ordinance and releasing prisoners. His actions reduced the police budget so much that our Mayor Lambi and Aldermen took action to limit his authority and even talked of having him removed from office. Carter created an unhealthy and even unsafe environment in our city for the residents of Wentzville because of the disturbance of our police patrolmen. Carter campaigned actively for Nick Guccione and there's no doubt his support will be reciprocated by the mayor. For my money, Carter is almost as big a smart-ass as I am—and that's saying something. If you have thoughts of voting for Carter, ask any Wentzville police officer who served during his term as judge for their opinion of his time on the bench.

Where the Buck Stops

Before I get into the happenings of the January 16th board of aldermen meeting I have to relay a newsflash, a pontification by our Nickompoop; Mayor Nick Guccione. During the Mayor's Report, Nickompoop stated that he had good news; the Newstime newspaper is going to be publishing weekly once again and that they will have a reporter at all of the city meetings. Quoting Nickompoop: "Newstime will fix any misinformation out there." That's great news for Wentzville, throw away the Journal, don't read Patch.com, and never, ever visit the Wentzvillian. Our Nickompoop has declared the Newstime newspaper the guardian of Truth, Justice, and the American way.  His rationalization sounds like one of Mayor Lambi's during his last days in office—twisted.

Possibly the most interesting portion of the meeting was "Open Forum." A gentleman spoke before the board asking them to change the sign ordinance to allow human signs. If you'll remember, Jiffy Lube always had a person waving a large sign at people in cars on Pearce Blvd. near the Wentzville Parkway trying to rustle up business and some business owners had people in costumes on streets out in front of their businesses. The City received numerous complaints by citizens claiming these large animated critters and sign waivers are  hazardous distractions to travelers on Wentzville thoroughfares—they wanted it stopped.

The sign ordinance was just recently revised removing the "human sign" hazard from the roadways and now it will be interesting to see if the aldermen go back on their earlier decision, under the threat of litigation, and bow to the speaker because he claims it to be a violation of his first amendment rights. His company uses human signs in costumes of the Statue of Liberty to attract business. If the city changes the ordinance to allow human signs get ready for a hoard of costumed hucksters in the form of hippos, ball headed hamburger peddlers, and giant gorilla balloons lining the Parkway and Avenues of Wentzville.

Now back to Rock Park. City staff came back with their upside cost overrun amounting to $290,000 for any more unexpected anomalies (rock removal). Last week they estimated $250,000 but the two-ninety figure is their latest estimate. The new number leaves $2,000 for any other problems they may have during the remaining ninety percent of construction cost of the 6.3 million dollar Splash Station. The "how did we get here" question was put off for another day and Ward 2 Alderman, Chris Gard stated, "Laying blame is not constructive." Ward 1 Alderman, Forrest Gossett added, "We need a root cause conference much like what is had with Federal contracts. We must not repeat how we got here."

Perhaps the most dysfunctional statement came from our maladroit mayor, Nick Guccione, "I can't see any problems above ground and nobody can anticipate what's below ground." REALLY Mr. Mayor! I'm going to hold you to the first part of that statement, especially when above ground change orders begin coming in which total more than $2,000. Secondly, core sampling was invented many years ago, no major undertaking of this magnitude would not include it. The history of this site was known and I would think that any competent below ground survey would have found the "unforeseen anomaly." Obviously, someone dropped the ball and by the sound of your statement, it fell on your head!

The Splash Station project is going to come in over budget, there is absolutely no way it can't, and when that happens some amenities will need to be dropped from the project. It's going to be hard-decision time and I hope our Nickompoop can stand before the taxpayers and explain why this project is not all it should have been. I hope he is the one choosing which parts of the Splash Station are cut and he answers to the people of Wentzville.

This whole thing is your fault Mr. Mayor, you are in the seat where the buck stops and you need to take responsibility! Maybe you can get Newstime to blame it on someone else.

"Unanticipated Anomalies"

After attending the Special Aldermen Meeting last Wednesday night I'm sitting here this morning still scratching my head over the Splash Station discussion. I reported earlier on the city finding rock while excavating for the diving pool and last Wednesday's special meeting was to address the unexpected cost of their discovery.

Mr. Doug Lee, acting Public Works Director gave a presentation showing the extent of rock found at the site and the photographs he displayed looked more to me like a quarry than the beginnings of a diving pool  He stated that as of the day before they had excavated 1670 cubic feet of mostly limestone at a cost of $190,000. The city projected a contingency of $292,000 over the $6.3 million dollar cost of the Splash Station to allow for unforeseen problems and as of this writing they have used almost two-thirds of the contingency with less than 10 percent of the project completed.

A question was asked of Mr. Lee regarding the design company's response to the rock, he stated they called it an "unanticipated anomaly," (if I were to guess, our mayor probably had to find a dictionary after the meeting). I find it difficult to believe that the design company's surveyor didn't discover the rock during the core sampling, someone is going to swing for this one. One other thing that seems to have been overlooked when discussing this property; it has been known since Mayor Vickie Boedeker, that there was lots and lots of rock under it. Bodecker was pleased as punch when acquiring this "pig in a poke" but the city's joy was dashed when they found that there was so much rock under it that they couldn't even grade it for a sports field. It's been less than fifteen years since the property was bought and I can not believe that anyone in the city, except me, can not remember the history of the discovery of rock in this location. An unanticipated anomaly? I think not, I'm beginning to believe this project was rushed to the point that someone decided to put the splash station there knowing that there was rock but damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. After all, everyone knows it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.

I watched our mayor, Guccione through the meeting and on several occasions the aldermen asked for a decision...it never came. At least twice the alderman asked the Mayor what dollar limit to put on the cost overrun before they are forced to pull the plug on the location. Not only did Guccione not commit to any amount he appeared to be disengaged in the conversation, almost like he didn't understand the question. Alderman Rick Stokes asked, "Mayor, when do we stop?" Mayor Guccione gave no answer, even though it is his responsibility, he looked at everyone else in the room to give the answer.

The big question that was not answered was "How did we get here? On several occasions when it was asked, City Attorney Paul Rost said that staff members should not answer the question. Why? The only reason he would advise not answering the question is because somebody is going to be sued by the City. Where was Guccione all this time when he was supposed to be on top of this situation? The answer to that question is simple, he doesn't know what he is supposed to be doing. It's easier to divert attention, maybe to the extent of creating a controversy over renaming streets rather than face real issues which he has no concept of understanding.

We should not be here at this point, frankly I blame the city. The design company has some fault but the city knew the problems with this site long before this issue arose. Our Mayor should have been more actively seeking answers than rallying activists to rush this project through. He did it as an alderman and he did it as our mayor, he is most to blame and the most useless and destructive politician in Wentzville! It's only begun, Wentzville has more than three years left of this bumbling idiot.

A note to the Aldermen: Quit saving Guccione's ass, let him hang himself and then have him removed from office!