They're Dropping Like Flies



Our new interim Finance Director, Mr. Greg Smothers made his debut at the Wentzville Board of Alderman meeting last night's  Mr. Smothers predecessor, Ms. Petree Powell, was fired last Friday for unspecified reasons and added to a growing list of Directors being fired under Mayor Nickolas Guccione's administration.

Now for the reason for this post: It will be announced (or maybe not publicly announced) later this morning that the IT' Director, Ms. Carolyn Sutton will be joining Ms. Powell in the unemployment line. Sutton was responsible for the computer, video, and sound systems in the city.

I was amazed at the quality of the audio in the meeting last night, I could hear every word spoken by the mayor and aldermen, even if they weren't speaking on the particular subject being discussed. The audio prior to last night was terrible and I never understood why, after all, public address systems are not a new technology. I always thought they could have bought an old tube-type Bogen PA system and done a better job than our IT Department did with thousands of dollars of modern technology.

It was announced that the City of Wentzville borrowed the IT technicians.from O'Fallon to come look at our system, they made a few adjustments and, voila, instant fix for years of substandard audio. Perhaps this had something to do with relieving Ms Sutton of her position. At any rate, given that Guccione is responsible for firing half of the staff already, he could replace the entire staff in about four more weeks.

Blogosfear

The City of Wentzville has not posted the video from the Retreat...er...uh, I mean the "Strategic Planning Session," held Friday and Saturday, March 22nd and 23rd. During discussions at past board meetings we (the public), were promised that it would be videoed, I'm starting to wonder if the City didn't pull the same stunt they pulled last year, "Technical Problems." I can excuse it last year simply because the City handled all of that themselves, but now since they terminated staff, dissolved the City-operated IT department, and hired an outside contractor to handle the IT matters, we have to assume "Technical Problems" would be a thing of the past.

At the last board meeting the topic was discussed and it appeared to be a priority of the President of the Board, Rick Stokes, Alderman of Ward 3 to insure the Strategic Planning Session would be videoed. The only Alderman who was not pressing the issue was from Ward 2, Chris Gard who stated "The process is more important than the video." I strongly disagree with Gard, the citizens who voted for him and all of the aldermen sitting up there, have come to rely on the videos of public meetings posted on the City's website. You can't just say; "oh what the hell, we can do without it for this public meeting or that public meeting," when you tell the citizens it will be available, it should be available at all cost.

I regret not going to the Retreat last year because I was told by the City it would be recorded, and then, "Technical Problems." This year, hopefully I didn't fall for the same sad story for the "Strategic Planning Session." Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it will be posted but it's been five days since the session started, and besides, I spoke with the IT Director, Carolyn Sutton of Winning Technologies and she told me that it would be recorded, I can only hope she wasn't premature in her statement.

On to politics: A few things are bothering me. First, my mailbox is being bombarded with pretty campaign cards for a Mr. Bob Mainiri who is running for Wentzville Fire Board of Directors. I know he is supported by none other than our own Mayor Nickolas Guccione and that as of today, the Firefighters Union has donated $38,600 to his campaign. My question is; If he wins, what will he owe to the union? Secondly a question of ethics regarding the campaign of Bob Hussey for Alderman of Ward 1. It appears that on Mr. Hussey's campaign donations he has listed $400 from the Fire District. Perhaps I'm misdirected but, the Ethics Commission says that taxing entities cannot donate money to campaigns and the Fire District is a taxing entity. Could there be a little mischief afoot?

Now for some fun: Most of you would be correct in assuming that The Wentzvillian is not one of Mayor Nickolas Guccione's favorite publishers so I have come up with the word which best describes his phobia:

blogosfear (Blog´ôs-fear) n. Fear of being talked about or becoming a character in some one's blog. e.g. Anytime the Mayor talked to his friends, he was overwhelmed with blogosfear thinking their conversation would be published the next day in The Wentzvillian.