This year, the St. Charles Mayor’s Charity Ball became the St. Charles County All Mayors’ Charity Ball for all the mayors of our county. Well sort of. The whole thing felt like a wedding with Mayor York as the bride (she wore a white dress) and the other Mayors as the obligatory wedding party—invited as a backdrop/filler, but not trusted to be involved in the planning, selection of charity recipients, table placement or let near the Bar. But the event raised money for charity, so who is complaining?
I think we can do one better by tapping into the traditional rivalry between the cities of St. Peters and St. Charles and holding a Charity Boxing Match between each city’s resident grumpy old man. Who wouldn’t pay top dollar to watch a match up between “Battling Bob” Hoepfner and Len “Pandering Pagano”?
Just look at the “Tale of the Tape” and you can see that it is likely to be an even match:
First, both fighters have similar oddball choices for political whipping boys. Hoepfner feels compelled to attack the relatively popular St. Charles City Police Department. Not wanting to be outdone, Pagano demands background checks on St. Peters City Volunteers. It’s hard to say which political strategy is crazier, but they do seem to be at equal levels of nuttiness.
Second, the combatants each have a history of overreacting to a single resident call. In doing so, they both seem to turn rather innocuous issues into major points of contention within their cities. For example, one St. Charles resident complained to Hoepfner about his inability to obtain a continuance for his court matter without appearing in court first. So Hoepfner has decided that Municipal Court Judge Barklage is way out of bounds because lawyers have a slightly easier time than non-lawyers in navigating the murky waters of municipal court to get a continuance. By comparison, one St. Peters resident complained to Pagano about the number of scooters on the city streets. So Pagano decided that motorized scooters were the bane of St. Peters. The edge goes to Pagano, who managed to turn one killjoy’s opinion into a city ordinance. The jury is still out on Hoepfner’s crusade against the municipal court.
Third, each of these ancient gladiators has equivalent levels of experience in running for higher political office. That is, they both have impressive loss records. Hoepfner has unsuccessfully run for Mayor of St. Charles. Pagano has unsuccessfully run for Mayor of St. Peters. Both appear to be preparing to unsuccessfully run for mayor of their respective cities again. In this regard, I again give a slight experience edge to Pagano as he has also unsuccessfully run countywide for Assessor.
Next, we’ll need a referee. I guess we go with the old stand-by community good guy – Tom Hughes. I’m not sure he’ll be able to fit this event into his busy schedule, what with fundraising for Mayor York’s legal defense fund, various recall efforts targeted at Mayor York’s political rivals and Mayor York’s re-election fund, but I think we can count on him to step up and referee this match of the century.
Of course, these days Hughes’s “neutrality” seems suspect. He abandoned his status as unquestioned civic leader among the St. Charles business community to join Adolphus Busch IV’s Great White Duck Hunters Alliance.
Now those duck boys never play fair. They are all about throwing mud and making threats. But it is unclear to whom they would want to throw the match.
Hoepfner has flipped over to Mayor York’s side in St. Charles. Hughes likes York. The Duck Boys like York. So maybe Hoepfner can get some consideration on the close calls.
But in St. Peters, Pagano has started singing the duck lover’s song. He comes to meetings with prepared “remarks” courtesy of Glenn Jamboretz. Adolphus uses Jamboretz to write for all his candidates’ speeches. Unfortunately for Pagano, Jamboretz uses too many fifty-cent words for Pagano to struggle through.
If Adolphus is going to try and rig the fight (and why wouldn’t he given that he has tried to fix every county election in the last two years), we can never be sure who he will favor. In fact, the contestants won’t know either as Adolphus always promises both sides that he is with them.
Regardless of who wins, however, these grumpy old men aren’t going anywhere. And neither are their sycophants and groupies. So we’ll all have to make do and tolerate their endless rambling speeches, their mugging for the camera and their carefully orchestrated “confusions” on political issues where they want to flip sides.
It’s about time for each to contemplate his next run for Mayor (maybe they can switch cities this time?) Until then…ding, ding, ding…may the best grumpy old man win.
