By a unanimous vote, the St. Charles City Council and the Mayor have appointed former Sheriff Tim Swope to be the City Chief of Police. Mr. Swope has the ability and opportunity to remove the politics from our Police Department while applying a firm, even hand.
There was guarded enthusiasm for the appointment because it was assumed the Mayor received some sort of guarantee from Mr. Swope to keep the “hands off Tommy Mayer,” or she would not have approved the appointment. Swope has been a strong, innovative Sheriff and appears to have had no difficulty in standing up to County Executive Joe Ortwerth. We trust this appointment will bring to a close the ugly business of the Fraternal Order of Police and Mayor York using our police force for political and/or personal agendas. We wish Chief Swope the very best.
For more than 18 months, our Mayor has demonstrated to us repeatedly how it takes five people, shaking the stove while Patti holds the pan, to pop the corn! It was no surprise her “interim chief” White was there to praise the department and please Tommy Mayer. We should never forget that Mayer has leveled a multi-million dollar lawsuit against our City. After White was dismissed from a public meeting for calling a Councilman a profane name, he then misrepresented the meeting to the media as “unruly.” I always thought the one cussing was the one that was unruly!
Time will tell whether Mr. White will be a useful tool for Mr. Mayer in the upcoming lawsuit. It is highly unlikely his brief tenure as “interim chief,” at Patti’s request for the sum of $20,000, will prove beneficial to this City in any way.
There are still a number of issues facing our Mayor which pertain to possible illegal activity and/or misconduct. Her actions regarding our City’s insurance are currently under investigation by the Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Insurance. Our County Council is also investigating and will be deposing Carrie Caskey and others to get to the bottom of things. It appears the Mayor has willfully violated our City Charter.
There has been much public pressure exerted upon the Council members to suspend the Mayor while the investigations are pending. The Council will make their decision after receiving more information from these investigations.
While the Mayor still holds her office, she would do well to start attempting to bring unity to the City, make an effort at leadership, not permissive weakness toward department heads, and start telling the truth. The public effort to “recall the Mayor” has intensified since learning of the Mayor illegally signing contracts, executive orders, and the questionable transferring of monies from one account to another.
Always lurking out there, to put the mayor’s proper spin on events, is Chubby Chucky, the ace reporter from that other newspaper who continues to bore us with his perpetual namedropping. He has sat in his chair for so long, taking calls from his movers and shakers, it has been speculated he is actually stuck to the chair and can no longer stand up. We always knew he couldn’t stand up; we just didn’t know why. When Chucky attacks our editor, Tony Brockmeyer, on behalf of his Mayor, we think he is just real jealous because Tony is a stand-up guy and Chucky is not.
