Citizens For Responsible Community used As Hired Guns For Millionaires Group
Great Rivers Habitat Alliance has been using Citizens For Responsible Community and its founders, Carl Maus and Raymond Stone, as their hired guns in attempts to wrest control of some municipal governments in St. Charles County. Stone and Maus formed the organization in 2002.
Great Rivers Habitat Alliance membership includes Adolphus Busch IV as Chairman, Don Musick III as President and Peter von Gontard as Secretary. Other members include T.R. Hughes, a developer and close associate of St. Charles Mayor Patti York, and Glennon Jamboretz of the Glennon Company who has done public relations for the Fraternal Order of Police and the Mayor along with Citizens for Responsible Community. Hughes and Jamboretz are working on York’s legal defense fund. The fund was started by Hughes, Ken Kielty, a former city councilman and former chairman of the County Convention and Sports Facility Authority. Also involved are former Councilman Richard Baum, who was recently defeated by Joe McCulloch in an election for County Councilman, and Father Tillman the Pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Church.
The fund was started after the City Council began hearings into allegations the Mayor illegally signed a contract without the authority of the City Council as required by Ordinance and the City Charter. The alleged signing of this contract by York could result in the St. Charles taxpayers being indebted to Express Scripts in the amount of $200,000. Mayor York requested the City Council allocate funds for her to hire a private defense attorney. When the Council refused to spend taxpayer dollars defending her until it is known whether or not legal action is warranted, Hughes, Kielty, Baum, Tillman, and Kevin Kast started her legal defense fund.
Over the past couple of years members of Great Rivers Habitat Alliance have given Citizens for Responsible Community hundreds of thousands of dollars to be used as soft money in political campaigns throughout the county. Busch and Musick have given around $25,000 each and Jamboretz has given $23,000 with von Gontard giving a little less. Kielty and T. R. Hughes have also contributed to Citizens for Responsible Community and Hughes has spent money on his own in an attempt to have his candidates elected to the St. Charles City Council. He was successful in the elections of Councilmen Bob Kneemiller, Larry Muensch, Mike Weller and Jerry Reese. The attempts by Hughes to defeat Councilmen Rory Riddler, Mark Brown, John Gieseke, Joe Koester, Bob Hoepfner and Councilwoman Dottie Greer with candidates of his choosing were unsuccessful.
In addition to the St. Charles City Council elections, CFRC have involved themselves in municipal elections in St. Peters and O’Fallon as well as in County Council elections. County Councilmen Joe Brazil and Doug Funderburk have received thousands of dollars of support from CFRC along with State Representative Sally Faith. In a recent County Council special election CFRC spent several thousand dollars attempting to elect former St. Charles Councilman Richard Baum; in this they failed.
In O’Fallon, CFRC involved themselves in the mayoral and city council races. They supported Donna Morrow who was elected Mayor.
In St. Peters thousands of dollars were spent to defeat incumbent Mayor Tom Brown who had been in office 22 years. Brown told the First Capitol News, “Adolphus Busch and his group spent $95,000 in court fees to get Shawn Brown on the ballot and then spent over $30,000 to get him elected.”
Most of the money spent by this group is soft money. Soft money is the money a group spends on a candidate without the limits or restrictions on money collected and spent by the candidate.
When the St. Charles City Council recently proposed Charter Amendment One that would provide checks and balances on Mayoral appointments, CFRC spent thousands of dollars and worked to defeat the amendment.
The group also spent thousands of dollars to help Mayor York win reelection in her campaign against Dan Foust. Even though York was photographed with members of the group and in fact donated money to them, when questioned, she denied any knowledge of the organization or its members. After the election, Maus and Stone attended most of the St. Charles City Council meetings and were given use of the Mayor’s office at City Hall by York. Maus and Stone’s involvement in municipal government has been questioned by many. Neither live in any of the cities in which they have involved themselves. Both live in areas south of St. Charles and East of Hwy 94. We have been unable to locate any members of CFRC who live within the city limits of St. Charles.
CFRC has gained a reputation of conducting dirty smear campaigns against anyone who stands up to them. Several members of the St. Charles City Council have been victims of their wrath and dirty tricks campaigning.
Citizens for Responsible Community and Developer T.R. Hughes were responsible for the development and distribution of exotic literature developed by political professionals. Not only did the CFRC donate money to the political campaigns they were responsible for soft money spent in the campaigns. Soft money in CRFC’s hands is money spent to fool the public and to degrade a particular candidate and sway the public’s opinion to electing the candidate of their choice.
This is done by distorting facts, and telling half truths in an attempt to destroy a candidate or any supporters of candidates who may reveal their secret agenda.
Those close to the political scene believe Great Rivers has been using CFRC as hired guns in an attempt to keep themselves above the fray but believe it has not worked. It did not take long to determine who the money was behind these want-to-be power brokers.
