STATE AUDIT
Representatives from the office of State Auditor Claire McCaskill will be meeting Tuesday with the City Administration and members of the City Council. They will be going over preliminary findings of the recent state audit of the City of St. Charles.
Sometime after that meeting, perhaps a week or two, the findings will then be released to the citizens of St. Charles.
STARBUCKS
In our last edition we had a photo of the intersection of Fifth Street and Boones Lick incorrectly identified as being Fifth and First Capitol. At the Landmarks meeting this week, Commissioners sent local architect Steve Hollander, representing Starbucks, back to the drawing board. They do not like the overall look of the proposed building and they have concerns about the drive-up as currently planned. Local preservationist Archie Scott, and Bill Goellner, President of the South Main Preservation Society, made comments and suggestions. They will be appearing Monday before the Planning and Zoning Commission for site plan approval.
FIREWORKS
A bill is pending before the City Council that would allow the setting off of fireworks in the City for only three days, July 3rd, 4th and 5th. It was introduced by Councilwoman Dottie Greer. The bill also calls for some of the fees received from permits for the sale of fireworks to be used to put extra police officers on the street to strictly enforce the ordinance.
NO SEVERANCE PAY WITHOUT COUNCIL APPROVAL
The City had two full time City Attorneys. Inaddition, a lot of legal work was sent to outside counsel. The City Council recently made one of those positions part time. The attorney who was holding a full time position, Bob Hoenck resigned rather than accept the part time position. The administration, without the knowledge or consent of the Council, then paid Hoenck approximately $40,000 in severance pay.
The City Council has since passed a motion that no severance pay can be given to any individual without approval of the Council.
When told some department heads had severance pay in their contracts, several of the council members replied if they were fired for cause then let them go ahead and file suit because they did not feel the courts would uphold the clause.
Without Growth, Taxes Will Rise
Councilman Mike Weller demonstrated a tremendous lack of understanding of city finance. It could be the fact he never took college courses in government or it could be he believes his own company, Citicorp, was wrong to use governments abiltiy to use tax funds to relocate their offices in O’Fallon. Weller doesn’t beleieve New Town will be a benefit to the residents of St. Charles. It is our beleif all new residents are a benefit to the City of St. Charles. Weller’s Citicorp can’t say that. Citicorp has taken hundreds of millions of tax dollars from taxpayers to their benefit. According to a CATO Institute study, Citicorp, a billion dollar corporation has recieved millions to relocate in different cities. In O’Fallon they recieved tax dollars from the State, City and even took from the Schools districts. (Which affects every taxpayer in the state of Missouri and money away from your children’s education.)
I bring this up to remind everyone Weller’s words don’t follow his actions. He speaks of trying to protect taxpayers as he draws a salary from a company that uses public tax dollars to build builidngs. Weller was part of the management that built the buildings. Weller didn’t mind using our tax dollars to construct his company’s buildings but does mind the fact the city mgiht lock in 2005 sewer rates for New Town. Now remember, New Town is not taking money from every resident in the State, the City or the Schools.
Those taxing districts will recieve the benefits of New Town, unlike Citicorp who recieves tax breaks for a period of years. Weller’s lack of understandig could be detrimental to our city’s health. How? Small minds believe growth is bad, without growth all our taxes are sure to rise. The City’s fixed cost are not going down. Wouldn’t you rather spread the cost out over more residents?
We have learned at press time that the City Administrator is putting pressure on Director of Public Works, Mike Pratt to resign. More next edition
