Poor Performance Causes
Mayoral Candidate
To Be Ousted
From Office By Over 78 percent of the Voters
Now She Wants Another Chance
Former Mayor Grace Nichols is a candidate in the February 6th Mayoral primary election. In the early 70’s she served as a state representative. Grace served on the City Council from 1975 to 1981. Grace was elected Mayor of St. Charles in April of 1987 and re-elected to a second term in April of 1991. In 1995 she attempted a third term in office and was defeated by Robert L. Moeller, a retired construction manager and political unknown, who had never held a public office.
What Grace is hoping the voters forget is, that after she served eight years as Mayor, the voters sent a loud and clear message when over 78 percent of the voters voted her out of office. Of the 10,105 votes cast she could only muster 2,244 votes. In fact, she ran third in that race.
Bring Back Grace has been the slogan coined by her campaign. I guess they are counting on very short memories of her tenure and her last election. Nichols had a tumultuous second term with the City Council. Taxes were raised during her tenure. Her efforts to cover up a mistake made when moving the train depot, the purchase of the Goldenrod Showboat, fighting against a bill that would have required members of boards and commissions to be St. Charles residents, fighting against the construction of the Trail Head Brewery on South Main, were just a few of the reasons 78 percent of the votes cast were against Grace.
Now we are being asked to bring back a mayor who didn’t carry a single ward in her last election who couldn’t win a judicial race. Governor Carnahan appointed Grace to a judicial seat when it was vacated. She was the alternate candidate when two fighting Democratic groups could not come together on a single candidate. She served as St. Charles County Circuit Judge from October of 1997 to December 31, 1998. Grace stood for election to the seat and was soundly defeated. She retired and now serves as a senior judge.
Any retired judge receiving retirement benefits, who is willing to serve as a senior judge, may make application for such service with the clerk of the Supreme Court. An application is then submitted to the Supreme Court for approval or disapproval and shall be valid for a period of one year from the date of approval. Upon the request of the presiding judge of any circuit, the Supreme Court may appoint a senior judge or senior commissioner from the file of approved applications. Appointments to serve shall be based on caseload and need, as determined by the Supreme Court. The appointment may be made for a specific case or cases or for a specified period of time not to exceed one year.
I have never met Grace, but, we have been told she is a nice lady. However, she would be in over her head trying to run a major corporation with a $100 million budget business like the City of St. Charles. Just because you can rule from the judicial bench does not mean you can run a business. Nichols has limited business experience and is a liberal when it comes to taxes. She raised taxes last time in office because she and her city administrator couldn’t balance the budget, fix the streets and pay salaries. She didn’t know what to do, so she fought to raise taxes on the residents. So it is easy to say she left with a balanced budget. She balanced it with your tax dollars.
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