A City that is destined to repeat its past is one that doesn’t learn from it. St Charles City is rich in history but doesn’t need to continue to bring it’s past to life. St. Charles needs to break out of the past to move this City forward. Take a look at our past and point to the great accomplishments you would like repeated.
I offer you these for consideration:
During the LCA days on South Main many of the leaders thought it would be a good idea to completely close off South Main Street. One day the logs went up and the cars stopped moving up and down the street. This didn’t last long as the merchants felt the pain of lack of traffic and customers. Did the city learn from this? No, the city then closed off North Main and in the not so distant past the previous City’s Tourism Director actually wanted to close off South Main and only allow carriage rides.
In the early 1990’s the City hired a City Administrator to move the city forward. This person might have been thought of highly after the 12 or so years he put in before leaving, but if you look at his tenure he really didn’t do much to make the city better (Allan Williams). To give credit he deserves he did do a good job with the flood of ‘93 but other than that there’s not much to tell. So what did the city do? They hired him again. What did we get? More of the same. He hasn’t done anything to note that would point to the leadership that we should have received for over $150,000 a year in compensation. Just a note, one of those running now for office of Mayor (Nichols) hired him before the other (York) hired him this time. A strike against the two that who want to again be mayor.
The City has a bad history investing in the tourism industry as well. Two that come to mind, the Goldenrod Showboat and the Miniature Museum. Both of these cost the city millions all for the sake of tourism. Who do we have to thank for them? Grace Nichols. On top of these two gems that person also hired the previous tourism director.
I guess what I’m trying to say is be careful of the past. It took over 12 years to clean up the problems caused by those who say they can lead now. If they could have led then they wouldn’t have been defeated in the first place. You also have to look at the present and ask is the city better off now after eight years under the current leadership that is a mix of old and new. Who made the decisions to take the city backwards in time? In closing I appreciate our historical past but we don’t need repeat it again and again. This city needs to move past the need to keep the status quo and look at moving to a new history of progress. Why would you expect something different with the same old cast?
