A subject which has been hotly contested for the past six months has been Ranken Technical College. Among other things, the resolution for the City offer of $120,000 a year for three years for Ranken to bring a satellite school to Wentzville was discussed and approved unanimously by the Board of Aldermen.
It must first be known that I agree with this resolution and believe that Ranken will greatly enhance the economic engine of Wentzville. I also agree with the part of the resolution that addresses bringing in partners to assist in its financing. If things go as planned, the City would have a first-rate technical school and the partners would pay the $120,000 every year, leaving the City not having to spend a dime. What is needed for all of this to work to the benefit of Wentsville is; our Ecomomic Development Director, Larry Tucker working with the St. Charles County EDC and the strong support of our Mayor to round-up (so to speak) enough sponsors to carry the freight.
Everything was going along fine with this plan until the allegations that Mayor Lambi was influence peddling and lastly, the switch of Alderman Guccione to say he no longer supported the resolution. Other than the remarkably poor timing of these events which could have killed the whole deal, I believe it could have survived. The problem that comes to play now is that in one week, that Alderman who flipped on his decision will become the Mayor of Wentzville and it casts a longer shadow upon the success of the plan.
At the Board of Aldermen meeting of April 11th, during the report of Alderman Guccione, he asked for two other Aldermen, Larry Tucker, and Greg Presteman of the St. Charles County EDC to attend a meeting on Wednesday morning with Ranken with him. Why? I don't know, but it happened this morning and I'm sure it will be a topic of discussion next Wednesday at the next Board meeting.
I talked with insiders last week about the reason for the meeting and was surprised by their lack of an answer. One of them offered: It's one of two things; either he wants to put an end to it all together; or he's changed his mind again, and given his record on flipping on subjects, that is probably the answer. When I spoke with a citizen who was pretty close to Guccione, he said: "How will he ever gain credibility changing his mind all of the time."
Only time will tell how this will turn out but I have to agree, Guccione needs to be more decisive and stick with his decisions. For the last five years as Alderman, he has not had a good record for being decisive, now that he's Mayor, he will be seen countywide and consistency is key to the success of our city.
