You've Got to Stand for Something

Mayor-Elect Nickolas Guccione would normally take the throne of Wentzville on the second week of April but due to Friday being a State holiday (State Arbor Day), and the possibility that there may be a delay in receiving the official certifications, the swearing-in ceremony will probably take place on the fourth week of April, the meeting of the 25th. This is a historical event, in the 157 years of our city's founding it's the first time any mayor of Wentzville was ever sworn-in for more than two years. It's unfortunate that voters elected a man without a program, without accomplishments, and without a clue.

The delay in the changing of the guard will accomplish two things: 1) It will give Mayor Lambi two more meetings to force the Board of Aldermen to release the unedited minutes alleging his conflict of interests. It will be interesting to see where Guccione stands on this situation now that he's taking over. 2) It gives Guccione two more weeks to master parliamentary procedure and read Mayor for Dummies a couple of times. I wonder if there's a section in there on getting elected using the assist of stolen copyrighted and trademarked corporate and City logos. I'm sure there's something in the Wentzville Policies and Procedures Manual regarding the use of the City logo and I'll bet it doesn't include using it on campaign literature and websites. It's ironic, one Mayor going out of office wearing the shroud of legal problems and another coming into office with a similar shroud of possibilities.

This is just the begining of Guccione's problems. After watching him for five years as an Alderman and in discussion with people in the know, his lack of knowledge brings a great propensity for getting the City sued early and often. Mr. Guccione knows just enough about city government to be dangerous. One of my readers posed the challenge: "I'll wager that Guccione will get the city sued within the first 100 days of his administration." That could happen, it depends entirely upon his level of grandiose delusions.

I'm struggling with his vision for the city. The only thing I've ever seen him perk up and get involved with is the pitbull ordinance, is he going to turn Wentzville into Dogville, and will he preside over the Sam's Club ribbon cutting, knowing that his unions will frown upon it? I kind of wonder if he's going to continue picketing at the Lake St. Louis pet store. He's never brought forth any legislation during his time as Alderman, what exactly does he stand for? What is he going to do besides pander to the unions, bash the home builders, and blame the blog? Someone please help me with these questions, he never came to my door campaigning so I didn't have the opportunity to hear any of his promises. His campaign flyers said nothing about his vision or platform and I'm clueless.

I've pondered long and hard for many months about the possibility of Guccione becoming Mayor of Wentzville and I've yet to figure out why he would want to be or why any right-thinking voter would elect him. He has no platform, no accomplishments, and no allies in any government, where is he taking us for the next four years? I'm totally lost, some of my readers have stated that he will be a great Mayor, my question is how and why? I asked that question to each and every comment and never once got an answer, can someone please help me understand?

More Master Plan woes!

I was talking with a friend this weekend, Mr. Tom Durst, owner of Wentzville's Dairy Queen. He has conserns about the Church Street improvements scheduled to begin in 2011. According to the master plan, there will be a six foot sidewalk on the west side of Church Street and a nine foot sidewalk on Dairy Queen's side. The result is the city commandeering about another six feet of his property. In addition to the nine foot extension of the sidewalk there will be a bike rack and a bench. This all sounds very cosmopolitan except that Tom stated that the sidewalk would come right up to his sign standard.

The obvious question is why is the City planning on building the nine foot sidewalk on the east side where there are homes and businesses and not on the west side where there is mostly parking lots for most of the street. Well, this is just a guess but, the path of leat resistance may be why. Since the west side of Church Street is mostly parking lots, at first glance it would be the best choice to expand the sidewalk. But after looking at it, the path of least resistance may be considerably more expensive. It would mean removing the fences from St. Patrick's and MFA properties and rebuilding them which in the long run may be more expensive than taking the property from Mr. Durst and a whole block of homes and businesses where there are no fences.

I've found that most of the decisions made by the city is based on money. If you find the money, you find the reason. The problem which Mr. Durst and a host of others on the east side of the street could be facing is that the engineering may be complete and in that case, it would cost the City even more money changing the engineering and paying for a new fence or two. It's a catch 22. It amazes me how little thought goes into these major projects and how little consideration is given to residents and busineses of Wentzville.

I hope the folks on the east side of the street go before the Board of Alderman and lodge their complaints, it'll be a lot easier to fix now before the City starts breaking ground.