The Mayor, Hoepfner and Tom Delay
What does St. Charles have in common with Tom Delay and Texas? At first, I would have said nothing, but after this weeks discovery of the Mayor’s special deal with Glennon Jamboretz and Bob Hoepfners special deal with developer Mike Sellenschuetter my mind has changed. York and Hoepfner both have used their positions to help themselves. York paid a person, who is allegedly renting from her and who has used her address on two City business license applications and who is allegedly helping in the recall of two Council members, even though there is no work product on file at City Hall. The contract was paid from a budget line item that is for paper. The name on the check differs from the registered vendor. There are three separate names yet the money evidently goes to the same person. The payments to Jamboretz coincide with him apparently renting from the Mayor and her husband.
Glennon Jamboretz is working on the recall of Dottie Greer and Mark Brown both political foes of the Mayor. This is also the same person who works for Thomas Mayer the police officer who was fired after a slow speed chase of our City Administrator where he reportedly ordered Williams to the ground at gun point.. Mayer is suing the City for $104 million and York found it appropriate to write a letter of recommendation for him. As you can see there are a number of reasons for her to pay Jamboretz. The problem is the taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill. This is a violation of the people’s trust much like that of Tom Delay. These things happen when people believe they are invincible.
The First Capitol News began to notice a change in Councilman Bob Hoepfner over the past several months. We received reports that Hoepfner had been making unreasonable demands from those who had legislation pending in front of the City Council but assumed these to be just the typical politics of personal destruction that the Mayor and her political hit men employee. A sudden change came over Hoepfner after his return from a trip to Germany with the Mayor and Councilman Jerry Reese. It appeared that he no longer had the interest of the “citizen taxpayers” at heart. It appears that the reports of questionable activities might be true.
When we noticed this sudden change in Hoepfner the FCN immediately took action and no longer printed his column in this paper. The FCN was not going to allow him to use these pages to coerce others who had legislation before the council.
Hoepfner was accused of a conflict of interest this past Tuesday night at the City Council meeting and refused to recuse himself from voting. The recent debate on the Council floor and his statements of fact lead me to two conclusions. First, he admits to doing something that is illegal in selling his plumbing permit for use by someone who was not licensed. I believe anyone who lives in the new development that has him listed as the licensed master plumber has a claim if anything goes wrong. Second, the fact that there was apparently an intermediary in a payment to Hoepfner does not relieve him from ethical problems. This is what Delay did in Texas, have someone else collect the money, then pay it to the person it was truly intended to be for.
A very reliable source, as well as one of those who was contacted by Councilman Hoepfner, told us Hoepfner told a major developer’s attorney he would allow the development to tap on to the City sewer system at a reduced rate if they would donate $50,000 to “Show-me Aquatics”. They refused and Hoepfner has been attacking them ever since. Another said Hoepfner asked for two round trip tickets to Germany, and asked that the vendor purchase a piece of property he owned at what appeared to be an inflated price. These incidents plus the plumbing permit should be thoroughly investigated by the proper authorities.
