The View From The Cheap Seats
By Jerry Haferkamp
First things first. In my last column I said Ward 2 was next on the “hit list” of the people trying to take control of your city from you. It was a typo. Of course I meant Ward 3. Larry is safe as long as he says “how high?” every time Weller says, “jump”. My other miss-que was referring to Hoepfner as “Schlep”. Everyone knows the fourth member of the Three Stooges was “Shep”, not Schlep. I offer my apologies for getting the name of the fourth of Patty’s Stooges wrong.
I just can’t get over how good it feels to know that $100 and a great deal of honesty turned back a $50,000 to $70,000 assault on your city. I had mentioned the problems in government in our neighboring cities to the west, and how the common factor isn’t politics, as the political affiliation of the combatants doesn’t seem to matter. What does seem to matter is the outside interference of the interlopers who don’t reside in any of the cities. They attempt to buy influence for their developer “du jour” I say “du jour” because in O’Fallon, the money to fund the Non-Citizens Responsible for Turmoil in your Community is now working for developers that gave nice donations to them. This is no surprise to me. I knew all along they were working for developers…it appears the requirement for them to support a developer is for the developer to support them. There is a bigger threat to us from these interlopers coming north across the Page Avenue extension than any imagined threat from those coming north across the Rio Grande.
St. Charles, we need to get control of our borders.
A tip of the hat goes to the many residents who spoke at Tuesday’s council meeting opposing eminent domain. As they so eloquently stated, the use of eminent domain isn’t necessary to cause financial injury to our residents. Just the threat of its use is more than enough. In fact, even the threat of its use is too much. The use of eminent domain and even the threat of its use have been shown to be a disaster to those whose property was taken from them. This council is sitting still while they see what comes from state legislation. We don’t need lemmings that just follow. We elected them as leaders. It’s time to say NO to eminent domain except for public works, utilities and cases of SEVERE, uncorrected blight.
In the next budget sessions, the council needs to set aside funding for a watch for the staffer responsible for setting the times for the school zone flashing lights on Zumbehl. They flash 15 MPH at 10 A.M. when no children are near. They are off at 8 A.M with kids everywhere. Many times the southbound are flashing when the northbound aren’t. Why would it be O.K. to drive 30 on one side of the street and 15 on the other? A little enforcement wouldn’t be bad either. I have been passed twice while obeying the 15 MPH lights. One was a teen with his cap on backwards, or maybe his hat was right and his head was backwards. Who knows?
Of course, that’s just the view from the cheap seats.
