The Wentzvillian attended its first ever Parks Board meeting last night, Monday, February 5th because I wanted to get their take on the rock situation and I got more than expected. I urge my readers to watch the City's Parks Board meeting video to confirm the things written here. It was worth attending, some very revealing statements were made during the "Open Forum" and "Unfinished Business Item 1, (ID # 4345 Project Parks Update."
Other than myself, spectators were sparse at best. Mayor Nickolas Guccione sat in the front row and President of the Board of Alderman, Rick Stokes sat in the second. Guccione attends every committee and board meeting being held in the city because this is how he learns what's going on in the city. Rather than read minutes or packets of bills and resolutions he leads the city via the audio method. He also makes decisions on subjects by hearing which items get the most support and then he leans in that direction, this is known as the "Guccione Method of Mayoring."
Stokes got up during open forum announcing himself as "citizen Rick Stokes" and issued a rather provocative challenge regarding hitting rock and cost overruns to the Park Board. "About a year ago during the planning, design, and selection process, members of the Park Board and the Mayor openly criticized the Board of Aldermen." The Parks Board and Mayor listened intently as Stokes said; "Some of the helpful comments made were: Just trust staff; The evaluation committee made their decision, just go!; The VOTERS want parks NOW, The staff and PDS (design company) know what they are doing, get out of the way. And my personal favorite: Stop questioning staff and start digging."
Currently, cost overruns are at $240,000 with a contingency of $292,000 for the entire Splash Station which is less than five percent complete. Stokes went on to say, "49 percent of the voters said "no" to parks and they want to know how their money is being spent. I challenge the Park Board to bring forward its recommendations about where we are going to get the money to pay for these overruns to the Board of Aldermen? There are two other parks budgeted and they have large water features what happens if we hit rock there too? Do we build them at the same time or do we sequence them?
Stokes finished by saying, "The Board of Aldermen wish to be in agreement with the Parks Board, we would like to think you are a partner rather than a critic." That statement cut them to the bone because they and the Mayor have been critics, in a very public way. Guccione will need to figure out who to blame for his statements of the past.
Finally, during unfinished business one of the parks board members stuck her foot down her throat buy saying, "I'm surprised the rock situation was a surprise! We knew years ago that there was rock there when we tried to build some ball fields." I'm now questioning who is to blame for this problem and I imagine our City Attorney, Paul Rost, is going to be pulling his hair out after that public admission. Things just got a lot more complicated for him. Somewhere in the city, someone knew that they would have the problem of excessive rock and they didn't bother to bring this little fact to the Board of Aldermen.
Last night, citizen Rick Stokes handed the Mayor and his staff a super-sized meadow muffin sandwich, maybe Guccione could bring the condiments. I can't wait to see Guccione trying to wiggle out of this blunder, it just keeps getting better and better to watch city stuff unfold.
