And God Said ... "I Don't Remember"

 

Much was discussed during the six-hour meeting of September 11th and I'll try to report on a few of the highlights without getting side tracked by the lack of our Mayor's participation—or his fashion trend. The overwhelming preponderance of the evening's talk was focused on finances. There were reviews of various projects, but I think everyone already knows that Splash Station is a half-million dollars over budget and now scheduled to open in November. I hope our Wentzville residents bring their fur-lined bikinis and thermal-Speedos to the grand opening.

 

On April 4, 2013 The Wentzvillian posted Mayor Guccione—First Year Review  which listed Mayor Nickolas Guccione's accomplishments of 2012. Unfortunately, he didn't give the City a list of initiatives for 2012, so I listed only his accomplishments.

 

Now we get to Board objectives, when each Alderman had the opportunity to tell the people of Wentzville their accomplishments for 2013 and their vision of what needs to be done for 2014. After they finished, Guccione attempted to move forward with the agenda when Board President, Rick Stokes asked; "Mr. Mayor, don't you want to give the public the status of your 2013 goals and objectives?" This is becoming cliché, but after King Nickolas shook off his thousand-yard stare, he said, "I don't remember what they were, and I didn't bring them with me." WHAT!!! On March 29, 2013 The Wentzvillian posted; 4 Days to the Election, and... where Guccione's goals and objectives for 2013 were listed. It was fun to go back and see just how many have been pursued or realized by the Almighty, can anyone say; NONE?

 

Guccione is famous for saying some pretty imbecilic things, but "I don't remember ... ," (referring to his goals and objectives) has to be one of the all-time most dicrous statements ever made by a seated mayor. Isn't it the job of a mayor to have a vision and work toward seeing it through, how could he not remember? To hear him say, "I don't remember ... " is like hearing a gunfighter say, "Hold on a second, I didn't remember to load my pistol and I didn't bring any bullets."

 

I find it totally irresponsible that for the second year Guccione is not telling the people and staff his goals for the future, and now can't remember his objectives from last year. The city is going into budget mode, shouldn't the mayor tell the city what he wants to accomplish in 2014 so it could be budgeted? So what is really going on?

 

Guccione is not, and never has been one to set goals. If he were to announce anything he wants to do, he would then take ownership of a potential failure. He doesn't want to take responsibility for anything that might not happen—to him it would be political suicide. If he ever does commit to something and it doesn't happen you can make book on him already having a list of people in his pocket to blame for the failure. I've heard from several of my sources that he is already blaming the last two City Administrators; T. Michael McDowell and George Kolb, for things that he himself should have taken care of. He gets away with it because one is in another state, and the other passed away. Deceive, divert, and redirect, is and always has been Guccione's mode of operation. Never take responsibility, never commit, and always have someone to blame it on.

 

Politics is our mayor's first priority; getting elected and re-elected is his objective. It has been this way since he first ran for alderman in 2007 and that position has never changed. Keeping his eye on the political ball and controlling every election comes before any City of Wentzville business. Right now, our mayor is out knocking on doors furthering his political agenda to replace Aldermen: Rick Stokes, Sonya Shryock, and Forrest Gossett with his own candidates. It's the same every year, controlling the Board of Aldermen, that is his vision for 2014. He's not committing to anything to better Wentzville, he wants total power over the city. There is absolutely no chance of you ever hearing him say; "I didn't remember the election," or any aspect of it.

 

Guccione Politicizes Street Renaming

Everyone has heard the talk of renaming one of our historic streets, what everyone doesn't know is how it all started and who was pushing. Once residents got wind of what the City was about to do, they began calling their Aldermen and several organizations in town  were motivated to oppose the change. The petitioner withdrew their request, the resolution was tabled, and citizens began breathing easier knowing that their historic street names would not change, unfortunately, this is when things escalated ... in the beginning:

Mayor Nickolas Guccione, owing the local NAACP for supporting him in his election last year, advised Mr. Curtis Davis of that organization, to write a formal letter to the City requesting the change of Kohrs Avenue to Dr, Martin Luther King Drive. When he received their letter Guccione drafted a resolution: "Resolution No. 12-472 Providing to Approve to Change the Name of Kohrs Avenue to Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, and Matters Relating Thereto," and presented it to the Aldermen for adoption or rejection. Interestingly, the resolution did not go through Planning and Zoning for their recommendation instead, Guccione circumvented the system and brought it straight to the Board of Aldermen. He did what he is best at; manipulation of the system in an effort to pull a fast one and put our good Aldermen on the spot. No one in the City could draft a resolution and present it to the board without going through channels other than the Mayor. If anyone is looking for who was responsible for this entire thing this is proof that Guccione was behind it all. At any rate, the Aldermen tabled the resolution until it could be investigated properly.

Since Kohrs Avenue is in Ward 1, Alderman Cheryl Kross called for the petitioner to meet in City Hall to determine what they were asking and things got hairy; George Kolb, City Administrator got involved suggesting a more high profile street to rename, and Nick Guccione took a powder leaving Alderman Kross holding the bag. He is a master of deception; it is leaked that Kross is in support of the street naming because she's running the meeting, Guccione leaves no trace of his involvement, and his plan to replace her in the upcoming election is in full swing by recruiting Robery Hussey to run against her. His only tie; the illegal resolution that did not go through the process, he must have figured no one would notice.

Today, Alderman Kross is facing another election where Mayor Guccione has recruited her opponent and he's determined to get her out. Armed with the lie that Kross is behind the street renaming fiasco, Guccione is out there hand in hand with Hussey spreading it to the HOA's and other public venues. Speaking of that, I find it interesting that Mayor Guccione is including his candidates; Hays and Hussey, and politicizing his duties as Mayor. Something stinks unethical there, but that's our beloved mayor, he is drawn like a moth to a flame whenever questionable ethics is about.

This Wednesday night at the regular Board of Aldermen meeting the resolution is back on the agenda. Alderman Kross is bringing it back off of the table to be voted down once and for all. Other than Guccione, George Kolb has been it's largest proponent and Wednesday is his final meeting as the interim City Administrator. Now we need to figure out a way of keeping Guccione from sneaking in a resolution memorializing our streets, after all he did make a promise to Curtis Davis of the NAACP and you can bet he's not finished. Mayor Guccione is responsible for a lot of our problems in the city today and this context is the only time the words "Guccione" and "responsible" should be used in the same sentence.

Issues of Importance?

The talk of street name changes has brought city hall to the realization that the citizens of Wentzville do not want any of their historic street names changed. Due to the outcry of these citizens, the Aldermen are in agreement that the current street names will be preserved. With the fear of changing our street names behind us, the stakeholders have begun breathing easier, but hold on.

From early on, there was the mention of something called "Memorial Street Names," but it didn't get much traction until recently when the name change proposal failed. After looking into the subject I found that when a name is memorialized on a given street it places the memorialized name on a green street sign just above the existing street name. What we would see is; Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd. on a green street sign above the existing sign, for example let's say; Pearce Blvd. or Allen Street, or pick a name. This system would relieve residents or businesses the costly address change resulting from a regular street name change and allow the recognition of another important benefactor to the city on a high visibility street.

At the end of the board of aldermen meeting of January 23rd, the board prioritized the work session topic list, one of the topics near the top of the list was; "Memorial Street Names. Alderman of Ward 2, Sonya Shyrock, asked that it be moved more toward the bottom allowing for more important items to the city be addressed first. Interim City Administrator, George Kolb stated that it would not take much time to address the issue and the light bulbs over my head went on.

Today, the city of Wentzville has no code or ordinance allowing for the implementation of a "Memorial Street Name," but one person is pushing for the new ordinance revision to allow it, that person is our Interum City Administrator, George Kolb. Personally, I don't believe the citizens of Wentzville would like this any more than a regular street name change. The problem is this, if the Aldermen revise the ordinance to include "Memorial Street Names," anytime a group wants one they just need to apply and if the name meets the criteria of the new ordinance it would need to be considered. Today because it doesn't exist, the City just needs to reply; "Sorry." If this becomes part of our code, the citizens of Wentzville will need to be constantly vigilant or they could see green memorial sings popping up all over town.

I think Alderman Shyrock "gets it," she knows the residents don't want this and that it should be at the bottom of any list of potential codification. In my opinion, the item should be removed from the list all together and if my readers agree they should call their Aldermen. I think the aldermen today are concerned with important items and will continue pushing it to the bottom but I also believe as long as George Kolb is the CA he will continue trying to get it to rise to the top.

Kolb is scheduled to leave his position on February 15th, I hope the City doesn't run out of list prior to him being replaced. Our Aldertmen need to keep their course of addressing important issues and push feel-good legislation to the bottom of their list. Oh and, thank you Alderman Shyrock!

Another One Bites the Dust or What's That Smell?

George Kolb, Interim City Administrator takes the fall for Mayor Nick Guccione's lack of leadership, his contract cut short with his last day February 15th. That makes three Wentzville city employees he's personally sent to the unemployment line to cover for the simple fact that he does not know how to function in his own capacity. Although I suspect the infraction that cost Kolb his job goes much deeper I can see where Guccione would have an easier time terminating a short-time contract employee over a long-time city person but this is merely a Band-Aid and ignores the real problem. So the score for Guccione is: Gooch 3, Wentzville employees -3, he's winning. For a touchy-feely mayor who claims to believe in jobs he sure has a funny way of showing it, but of course it would be too much to ask him to fall on his own sword.

So, what's the solution? As anyone who reads the Wentzvillian knows, I firmly believe Mayor Guccione negligent, derelict, and incompitent—you cannot fix stupid. In my opinion, policy and employees of any business, including cities do not mesh well, after all, "rules are made to be broken." Is rule-breaking the problem? No, it's a symptom of the real problem—poor management. Unfortunately, when our top management is occupied spewing political platitudes, blaming others for his shortcomings, and busy trying to get aldermen elected who agree with him, it doesn't leave much time to manage a city of 29,000. Of course this thought alludes to having a manager who knows how to manage, in our case we do not. So what's the solution? In order to find the answer, we need to have a manager who has experience in managing people, our mayor is a first-rate butcher but cutting up chickens and being friends with the employees is not good management.

There's an old saying in the military and is also used in industry to bring order to employee disorder; "Fire one for effect." By firing a person other employees of the business become more conscience about their jobs. Mayor Guccione has fired three employees in his first ten months in office and is still having problems, so what's the problem? Nick Guccione is the problem.

It's difficult to remove a mayor from office but that's what needs to be done in Wentzville. Our mayor has no inclination to learn how to manage and incapable of learning how to run a city. The aldermen who are enabling Guccione's poor management skills need to stop now. The Board of Aldermen meeting of January 23rd was the first time I've seen Guccione under pressure since his campaign ethics discussions shortly after he was elected. The Aldermen were relentless and Guccione almost soiled himself. If Wentzville wants a solution, our aldermen are going to have to quit doing his job for him and make him responsible for poor management by keeping up the pressure even to the extent of public embarrassment. If they do, sooner or later they will smell something coming from his direction and know they are on the right track.

Awk! Polly Wants A Cracker!

The Meeting:

The Board of Alderman held a special meeting scheduled to begin at 5:30 PM for Mayor Guccione's appointment to the vacant Ward 3 Alderman seat.  Due to an absence and a late arrival, there were not enough Aldermen present for a quorum, consequently the start time was pushed closer to 6:00 PM. The regular meeting started near 6:30 PM and presented the real possibility of another midnight session. On two agenda items (to paraphrase President of the Board; Rick Stokes), "In the interest of getting out of here before midnight, I move to table or postpone." If he hadn't, this meeting wouldn't have ended at 11:00 PM. Thank you Alderman Stokes.

Mayor Guccione's appointment wasn't much of a surprise and the Board approved his very good friend John Luby. Luby served two terms on the Board of Aldermen during the controversial "Lurchette" period, when Bill Schuette, Guccione, and Luby controlled the board. It was they who were instrumental in changing the Wentzville Parkway overlay district to include LED signs and live music. Resultant problems presented by these changes has residents complaining about them since they were implemented. It was a time of "feel good" legislation, if it felt good, or they had a friend who wanted it, it was passed.

John Luby is probably one of the nicest people in Wentzville and I always liked him but to be honest, I didn't agree with him much and was summarily disappointed with the way he represented my residential ward. If he is true to form, his alliance with Guccione will manifest itself in many 5-1 votes on issues. John won his first term but unopposed in his second and stayed in place. In Luby's bid for a third term, he was upset by the newcomer, Rick Stokes, who has become a leader on the board. It will be an interesting six months watching what Luby does leading up to the election in April 2013.

As expected the interim City Administrator was introduced: Mr. George R. Kolb. With the city only six days, I was surprised at the handle he has on city issues. Mr Kolb, by all outward appearances, looks like he is capable of handling the job he was hired to do. I wish him success in dealing with the many problems facing the city in his new smaller office.

The Peeve:

This highly intelligent Board of Aldermen use words or phrases that emphasise points they are trying to make. One of Alderman Stokes' pet phrases is; "Tee it up" or, "Who's going to tee this up?" I assume it is from his passion of playing golf and he uses it very well in many of his statements. I've heard Alderman Gossett use the word "rancor" on numerous occasions during the appointment process. A fairly common word that sometimes gives pause to those who may not know what it means. Then last night I heard our interim CA Mr. Kolb, use three tenses of the word; "vet," another word that I'm sure our Mayor is going to start using.

Now: Mayor (Polly wants a cracker) Guccione in an effort to sound either clever or intelligent (pick one), likes to parrot words and phrases stated by the aldermen. If he understands it, he'll repeat it that night—and usually more than once. He has now added; "tee up" to his "Polly wants a cracker important persons words and phrases that intelligent people use list" to his meeting vocabulary and is using it on a regular basis. (Polly) Guccione used the word "rancor" at least three times before the end of the meeting after Alderman Gossett used it in reference to him a few weeks ago. Last night Mr. Kolb used the words "vet, vetted," and "vetting," on several occasions and watching Guccione's face told me—"Awk" he was inpressed—he doesn't know what it means, but he was impressed. Mark my words, he will be adding this word to his "Polly wants a cracker important persons terms and words that intelligent people use list"—as soon as someone looks it up for him.

They say imitation is the kindest form of flattery, but in this instance it appears to be a disappointing indictment of our education system. However, I do encourage our aldermen to keep feeding Polly, it's fun to watch from the cheap seats.