Guccione Lesson #1 — Bailing Water Using A Drill

 

There's a regular Board of Alderman meeting tomorrow (Wednesday October 23, 2013) evening, and after reading the agenda I laughed out loud. If you'll remember at the last meeting, President of the Board, Rick Stokes, made a point of criticizing Mayor Nickolas Guccione for not controlling the meetings, saying; one-thirty in the morning was way too late to be ending. This problem has become standard practice, indicative of Guccione's leadership in, and outside of the meetings.

 

Item "3. (ID # 4850) Discuss to Set an End Time to Board of Aldermen Meetings." After looking at the board packet I read that this item was brought forward by Guccione. He really doesn't understand that he is the problem, not the size of the agenda.

 

Guccione has a habit of allowing citizens to talk and debate Bills and Resolutions. He can't quite grasp the simple fact that there is a business section of the meeting, and those citizens who attend the meeting are only spectators. Knowing him, I can understand his logic: Nickolas Guccione is political, he's always on the campaign trail. His philosophy is not in the best interest of the city, it's in the best interest of himself and those he supports during elections. He truly doesn't understand that he's going to piss-off some people simply because he's doing the job he was elected to do.

 

At the last meeting there were at least half-a-dozen citizens who spoke in "Open Forum," and at "Public Hearings." The problem came when those same people were encouraged to speak again during "Bills and Resolutions," not once but several times — each. Guccione actually allowed debate between the audience and petitioner during the business portion of the meeting.

 

I've attended a lot of board meetings of various cities around the county, and never once have I seen a mayor allow citizens to speak during the business portion of the meeting, unless it was to request an ambulance. On average, members of the audience are allowed three-to-five minutes to speak during public portions of the meeting. At the end of their time they are cut off whether they had finished or not, and they are not allowed to speak on any one item more than once. At St. Charles County meetings, the public is put on a timer and they have two minutes to make their point, period, then the hammer comes down and it's adios amigo.

 

The bottom line is, Guccione wants to put a time limit on the overall meeting when he needs to put a time limit on the speakers. What he's proposing will not work and I think the aldermen may tell him that tomorrow. He may actually wish he'd never put it on the agenda.

 

Now we come to Item "XIV. Information/Discussion," paragraph "2. (ID # 4858) Professional Services Committee." You remember when Aldermen Cheryl Kross led Sonya Shryock and Micheal Hays down the yellow brick road to having our legal services team drop their briefs and quit. After Guccione joined this rag-tag band of mutineers, the city has been scrambling to figure out what to do.

 

The discussion will be what to do about the all volunteer committee that now refuses to spend countless hours evaluating professional service companies because Guccione and his gaggle of groupies just reject their findings. I think it could be an enjoyable discussion for observers.

 



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The City just posted an amended agenda, and it seems that our crackerjack Mayor Guccione just ex afficioed himself into another committee mess. Under "New Business," paragraph "3. (ID # 4856 Financial Audit Service." The city just received a letter from their CPA; Allen, Gibbs, and Houlik, L.C., stating (in part), "... effective immediately, we withdraw from the contract and will not conduct the external audits for the City for 2013 or 2014. ..." hence, now the City is once again scrambling to replace yet another professional services company.

 

There was a discussion during the last Board of Aldermen meeting where it was decided not to pay a sum of $12,000 for additional "out of scope" work performed by the auditors under a verbal agreement. Guccione who is ex afficio of the audit committee didn't seem to remember any verbal agreement so rather than pay it, it was decided not to. I contest that Guccione naps through financial meetings, leaving it to others, I wonder who's gonna get a spanking this time?

 

The list of high-level employees who have left the City is enormous and now the CPA can be added to Legal Services on the list of professional services companies who no longer want to be involved with Guccione's brand of Wentzville. Does anyone hear the rumblings of "recall, recall, recall," out there on the streets. Incompetence must be rewarded and who better to reward with a recall? — Mayor Nickolas Guccione. His ship has taken on more water and he's using a drill to bail it out.