The View From The Cheap Seats
By Jerry Haferkamp
I was out of town during the mayoral “forum”. It is a shame that it wasn’t a debate, not the boring question and answer forum where the candidates have time to present polished answers.
I did read that Grace Nichols questioned the council’s time spent on the recall issues. Allow me to explain.
There are some in St. Charles that think our city is their sandbox. Only they are allowed to play. They were unable to purchase enough council seats in the last council election, so they hired some “concerned citizens” to drum up phony issues. They bought canvassers to get signatures necessary to try to kick out a good council member and replace her with one who would continue to put new sand in their sandbox. The attempt was wrought with fraud.
Our mayor degraded her office and herself by not only failing to denounce this fraud, but by actually working with the perpetrators of this fraud. She endorsed the fraud when she publicly asserted that it didn’t matter how the signatures were obtained, it only mattered that the perpetrators of the fraud had them. She then further tarnished the office by working the polls to show that she supported the criminal acts. Her desperation to get one more vote on the council overrode her good sense.
Our council stepped up and took the time to try to save the citizens from the fraud. Well, at least some of them did. None of our city services were jeopardized during the time they took to fight this fraud. Maybe Ms. Nichols felt that de-railing this fraud on our citizens wasn’t important, but thankfully some on our council thought our citizens are worth fighting for. Since our county prosecutor has shown no interest in charging the persons involved in these criminal acts, it was good that someone stood up for us.
Nice to see that Mike Klinghammer has filed for the council seat in Ward 8. I’m sure there will not be any threatening calls made from his cell phone.
I’m disappointed that Dottie Greer isn’t running this time. She has a lot of concern for the people in this city. She understands that the “city” isn’t the governing assemblage on North Second Street, but rather the people that reside here. At least she didn’t let “Patti’s Posse” run her out.
Note to school board. Re: TIF for Noah’s Ark property. “Part” of something is better than “all” of nothing. Like many investors know, profit isn’t always instant, but can be rewarding in time.
As usual, that’s just the view from the cheap seats.
