Guccione Has Wet Wentzville's Bed

 

Mayor Nickolas Guccione worked hard in making a fool of himself to get people elected to the Board of Aldermen who will give him total control of Wentzville city government. To him that means catering to special interests, favors for his buddies and prospective voters. Prior to last month, there were Aldermen who understood fiduciary responsibility, ethics, and representative government—that has all changed.

 

Today, we have one alderman; Chris Gard, who has the experience, know-how, and is far-sighted enough to recognize the many subtle pitfalls of legislating from the hip. The bad news is we have two aldermen, Michael Hays and Cheryl Kross, who have proven themselves to be close followers of the Nickolas Guccione butcher shop method of politics, and three new aldermen who will need guidance as they learn the ropes. At least two of our new aldermen, Linda Wright and Robert Hussey, owe a campaign debt to Nickolas Guccione and they are most likely to repay that debt back to him in the form of votes on the board. Then there's Alderman Michael Rhoades, he has the best chance of being an independent  thinker and true representative of the people in his ward, we can only pray that he seeks guidance from his ward mate; Ward 2 Alderman, Chris Gard, and not our small-thinking, short-sighted President of the Board, Cheryl Kross, and Mayor Nickolas 'Butcher of Wentzville' Guccione.

 

I've given a lot of thought to Cheryl Kross and her presidency of the board, and I'm having great difficulty resolving her ability to lead. A number of things in her recent past have illustrated her poor judgement and lack of  leadership. Most recently is the lawsuit in which it's alleged that she took an active role in the conspiracy to fire Chief Lisa Harrison (click here). She was instrumental in the movement against our City Attorney Paul Rost (click here) and the loss of our audit firm—not renewing the contracts of these two firms is costing taxpayers a fortune. Then there was her flip-vote (click here) to allow the seating of the most useles alderman and sock-puppet of King Nickolas; Michael Hays—that decision was not in the best interests of Wentzville or Ward 3, but rather her own political fear of not being re-elected in 2012. President of the Board Kross has proven herself incapable of leading a gaggle of geese across a road, how she is going to intelligently lead three cub-aldermen is beyond me. I'm afraid, as she leads with hate and revenge, the city will gather more lawsuits until an ernest movement can be mounted to vote her out of our city government. Kross is all over the city putting in face-time, she's also taking huge advantage of social media, posting everything she can find to keep her name in as an important person in the city. If there's a chance to get her out of office in 2015, concerned voters will need to start now.

 

So what does the near future hold for Wentzville? King Nickolas will immediately take apart the ethics policy and the sign ordinance allowing him to collect more baskets for the Mayor's Ball (click here), and give his buddy exJudge Michael Carter the ability to plaster Wentzville with political signs for his third run at Judge Stephen Martin in 2015. 'The Butcher' is not satisfied with having control of the executive and legislative branches of Wentzville government, he wants to control the judicial branch as well.

 

Things do not bode well for Wentzville with Mayor Nickolas Guccione and his flying monkeys leading our city down the tube. Guccione doesn't have any guidence running our city and must rely heavily on our directors and his "friends in high places." What this means is that once again, our city staff will be making Guccione's decisions for him. Problems loom large in the mystic of Wentzville's future, Guccione made his bed, has everything he wants, and now we'll see just how much better it gets around here. For my money it will be a nightmarish ride for our employees and the city coffers will be burned to the ground while the 'Butcher of Wentzville' plays his fiddle and seeks more avenues of power. These are dark days for Wentzville and we can thank voter apathy for it. Registered voters need to organize and put a stop to Guccione's party (Hays and Kross) in April of 2015.

 

A Duck Soaring With Eagles?

Six hours of my Saturday, October 26th, was spent watching the Board of Alderman budget meeting. Unfortunately for me, with all the Power Point presentations given by each department there was no video of the mayor and aldermen doing their thing, so I had to trot down to city hall to watch in person. I will report my findings later in the week because I need to make good on  the promise made to my readers on how Alderman Cheryl Kross found a way of spending more tax-dollars than we needed to spend.

 

A month ago on September 26th, I posted "I'll have no Truck With Plot — Sheldon Cooper (click here), where I wrote about the rejection of the findings of the Professional Services Committee that consequently caused the Wentzville legal services company to decline a six-month extension on their contract. On November 8th, the contract of Cunningham, Vogel, and Rost, P.C. (CVR) to represent Wentzville will end and the city has been scrambling to figure out what to do ever since.

 

The blame for our legal services team dismissal of the extension can be spread around, but the brunt must fall on Alderman Kross and Sonya Shyrock, they had personal reasons to get rid of City Attorney Paul Rost. These alderman cost the city dearly because now rather than pay legal services on a contracted basis, Wentzville will pay hourly rates-plus, until they can contract another firm. The remainder of the blame goes to Mayor Nickolas Guccione for breaking the tie because he disliked Paul Rost for not getting him out of his 2012 ethical problems, and Alderman Micheal Hays for doing whatever Guccione wanted him to do.

 

After going into public record I found a letter from CVR which outlines the hourly rate the city will pay them until another firm is contracted, and until such time all outstanding items are resolved. "Our billing rates for attorneys currently range from $250 to $305 for shareholders, $145 to $205 for associates, and $80 to $125 for legal assistants. Any Bond Counsel services requested will be charged based on such fee arrangement as is agreed to. Consistent with our policy, we will bill the City on a monthly basis for professional fees and expenses incurred on your behalf and bills will be addressed to the City for payment. We will include in our statements separate charges for photocopying, messenger and delivery service, computerized research, travel, long distance telephone, and telecopy expenses. Other fees and expenses (such as accountants, consultants, or other professionals, if required) generally will not be paid by us, but will be billed directly to the City.

 

Each of the three "shareholder" attorneys are charging between $250 and $305 per hour and it's not a case where we are being charged for one or the other, all three will more than likely be billing at the same time. If we average it out, Wentzville will be paying around $832 per hour for just the attorneys, no telling how many hours the "associates," and "legal assistants," will charge, I think it fair with everything listed we're somewhere in the ballpark at $1000 per hour, just for attorneys. and all because Kross, Shyrock, and Guccione had an ax to grind. With the pending cases, new cases, and bond work to be done before the City can secure a new legal services firm, it could add up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few months. Thank you Alderman Kross, Shyrock, and Mayor Nickolas, I hope you got this added into your "tight budget."

What's worse, even after a new legal team is contracted and being paid by the City, we will still be paying CVR for the many "... (ongoing law suits), Economic Bond Counsel who handles the; Bear Creek CID, GM Chapter 100 Bonds, ongoing advice and monitoring of existing issues, (SRF Bonds, revenue bonds, TDDs, CIDS, NIDS, etc.), and work through the new City Attorney as the point of contact. ..." It's anybody's guess how long (maybe years) these things may stretch out but until they are wrapped up, I strongly suggest that Alderman Kross, Shyrock, and Mayor Nickolas be made to sign over any paychecks the City gives them until such time that everything done currently by CVR is handled solely by the new legal services team. I don't think tax-payers should be made to pay for expenses to the City incurred by elected officials who have personal axes to grind. Of course, Hays should give back his paychecks simply because he's filler on the board for Mayor Nickolas.

What has transpired here is exactly why elections are so important to any city or government entity, we must elect people who are qualified and look out for the best interests of those who elected them. Take a look at their records, inside, and outside of the office they are seeking. If the voters had looked at Nickolas Guccione's record as an alderman, he would have been happily cutting up chickens and climbing the Schnucks corporate ladder, instead, he's the CEO, CFO, CO of the police force, leading 200 employees, safe-guarding Wentzville's operating expenses of $18,000,000, and a budget of over $50,000,000. With that kind of responsibility it's easy to take one's eye off of the ball, in the case of Nickolas Guccione he has never even seen the ball. As for the aldermen who created this situation, they didn't look far enough down the line, they never once asked the questions: What could happen if I take my personal grudge to my decision making for the City? What could happen if I insult the City's legal services team by not approving the recommendation of the professional services committee? And, would CVR really not accept our conciliatory six-month extension of their contract?

To watch our City Attorney, Paul Rost, sit through that grueling meeting where this group of unthinking aldermen raked him, and his team over their insulting coals was hard for me. Rost appeared to handle it in stride, but in my life I've learned never to insult or underestimate the power of an attorney, you never know when it might come back to bite you in the ass. Not once, did Kross, Shyrock, Hays, or Guccione ask themselves, or anyone else, the hard questions. They merely skipped their way into La-La land, hand-in-hand, merrily singing; "We're off to see the Wizard, the insidious Wizard of revenge."

So who actually got revenge on whom, and who is the real victim here? As I see it, CVR lost in the long run, Wentzville lost, the Tax-payers really lost, and after the next elections we can hope those responsible will lose; Kross, Shyrock, Hays, and Guccione. Cunningham. Vogel, and Rost, P.C. represent several cities and have earned accolades statewide, they really don't need Wentzville or this nut-bag group of politicians who drove them out of town. To Kross, Shyrock, Hays, and Guccione, I say: If you want to soar with eagles, don't be a duck, you might just find yourself being dinner, or did this unholy alliance just find that out?