The View From The Cheap Seats
By Jerry Haferkamp
A friend called a few days ago and she was pretty fired up. She had an appointment to see our former City Administrator, but just prior to the meeting he called her to cancel. He claimed that he didn’t have time to meet with her. One of the reasons he gave for the cancellation was that he had been told that she wrote a column for the First Capitol News. The strange thing is that after she assured him that she didn’t write for the FCN, he suddenly found that he had the time to meet after all.
I do write a column for the FCN, but I don’t remember relinquishing my rights as a citizen. Of course, I feel no need to converse with someone who refuses to honor his contract. Kinda lets you know what this administration thinks about the residents here, doesn’t it?
One of the former mayors suggested that the whole Council should be replaced. I’ll go a step further. I think we can just do away with City Hall altogether. We can save thousands by just letting judges handle everything. One judge recently ruled that contracts aren’t contracts. Another ruled that our elected officials don’t get to decide what is in the best interest of the city. Let’s just replace Petty Patti, her gunslinger “Doc’ Williams and the Council with a couple of judges. If they can’t rule everything, we have a State Representative who will get special laws passed for his friends. Who needs a city government? Think of the savings. No elections…no recalls…just 2 “enlightened” judges.
The attempt by Judge Ted House to become the omnipotent King of St. Charles hit a snag at Tuesdays Council meeting. Several councilmen questioned whether a judge could force them to violate their sworn duties. King House issued a regal edict to the Council to disregard our Charter and direct the city staff to proceed with their ministerial duties with regard to the hooking up of utilities to a county development. Councilman Kneemiller, in an obvious move to win favor with the new King, made a motion not to order staff to comply with the order, but to actually give the developer permission to hook up. This put the individual councilman in the position of voting to violate our Charter or possibly violate King House’s edict. Weller, Kneemiller, Reese and Hoepfner did as expected, thumbing their noses at our Charter and their constituents, and bowed to the King. The councilmen who didn’t want to violate our Charter either abstained or left the meeting. This gave Larry, Curly, Moe and Shep the votes they needed. Riddler correctly abstained due to prior business activities with the developer on a different development that could be viewed as a conflict. Hoepfner should have abstained for the same reason. Earlier Larry, Curly, Moe and Shep voted against appealing the Kings edict to disregard the Charter.
Note to developers: If your development is outside our city, the King has given you superior powers. You no longer have to be approved by the elected representatives of St. Charles like developers inside the city do. Just ask for an audience with King House. Our ordinances and Charter apparently mean nothing to him.
Lets take a look at the Ward 7 scorecard:
Dottie Greer voted for a cell phone tower the residents needed. She voted to place constraints on use of fireworks that didn’t exist before. The past Fourth of July proved that they work. She also voted to take control of the Police Department from Mr. Linda and put it into the hands of a Chief of Police.
According to the investigations and depositions her opposition has falsified petitions, conspired to commit fraud by telling canvassers to falsify petitions, and apparently committed fraud by submitting petitions that they knew were fraudulent. They then used their speaking time at Council meetings to cry and moan about someone investigating their actions, all the while spouting that they did nothing wrong. They blame their employees. If Al Capone could have gotten away with that, he would have never gone to prison. They are playing our citizens as fools, even many of the ones that signed the petitions…no, especially those who signed the petitions.
Is Jack Banas going to prosecute the fraud…or sweep it under the rug? Let’s face it. It’s only a minor thing, right? It’s not like they are stealing your money or your car. They’re only attempting to defraud you of your city.
Of course, that’s just the view from the cheap seats.
Ward seven voters can support Dottie Greer, or they can support fraud. It will be their choice.
