An open letter to
Mr. Watkins,
The readers of the “Citizen” need to know where you stand on the recall effort regarding Dottie Greer.
While it seems to be apparent that you would like to see any and all Councilpersons that truly represent their residents removed, you muddy the waters by printing (complete with cute little checkmarks) the reasons she should NOT be recalled.
Telling the members of the Beautification Committee that they need to follow our states LAWS when holding meetings. (Or do you prefer illegal proceedings?)
Fighting the constant cost overruns, including the Boones Lick corridor, that were “business as usual” with the previous council.
Refusing to be sworn in by the mayor. There was nothing like letting her know that the “business as usual” was about to end.
Removing the mayor from the dais. (Why don’t you report that the mayor thought it a good idea when she had her former “rubber stamp” council?)
Refusing to meet with the mayor? Maybe that was because Dottie doesn’t have a “bodyguard”.
Opposing the Convention Center. Although Dottie usually makes good decisions, this was undoubtedly one of her best.
Leading the charge to change the charter. See item 6 above.
You really need to stop praising Dottie or you may make Linda and her gaggle of giggling hens angry.
It might also be a good idea to put the words “Editorial Fantasy” that you use in your ego box on page three directly under the large “Citizen” on page one. You might even change the name to “Non-Citizen”. That way you really could be “Honest”.
I do always read your tabloid. I haven’t laughed so much since Laugh-In was on T.V. Keep up the comedy.
Jerry Haferkamp (A REAL citizen)
St. Charles, MO.
I sent this letter to the non-Citizen over a week ago and for some reason Mr. Watkins chose to print only the letters supporting the recall effort. I wonder why.
In this week’s edition he even has a letter from Mrs. Meyer taking Dottie to task for living up to her oath of office and attending a council meeting. Dottie swore to represent her constituents in CITY matters. She, unlike Jerry Reese, knows the difference between the school board and the city council. From her association with our mayor, Mrs. Meyer apparently thinks an oath of office means nothing, but to Dottie Greer it is obvious that hers does.
Jerry
To The Editor,
Story has it back about 30 years ago two young ladies from our town relieved (embezzled) the taxpayers of this county of about $190,000 from one of the divisions of this court system. From what I remember there was a pretty good case against these two ladies. “Guess what?” The charges were never brought forward into a court of law – seven years passed and the statute of limitations ran out. These two ladies had lost their jobs with the County government and when they weren’t prosecuted, one of these ladies sued the County government to get her job back. My memory is that I believe she won the suit and she was awarded an undisclosed amount to settle this suit.
Pretty good deal, got paid to relieve the taxpayers of this county of their hard earned money.
I wonder who was at fault? How about you? There are still a lot of people working in County and City government who could probably shed some light on this case if they only would for some of their political newcomers in our fine town to weigh in on our past.
Lets look at what is going on in our town for the past six years under the reign of Patricia York as Mayor. I’m referring to all the allegations of wrongdoing that has surfaced against her and some of her cronies that have helped her to deceive us the taxpayers.
Let’s just talk about two wrongdoings of hers’ for now. Express Scripts Gate and Jamboretz Gate and his laundry business particularly.
When she has five councilmen, Muench, Weller, Kneemiller, Reese and maybe Hoepfner vote not to allow the subpoenas for witnesses in the Express Script wrong doing to see that Patti receives the justice that is due everyone, we have a big problem for us the taxpayers.
Now we have Jamboretz’s laundry business that is eating up our tax money to help recall Council persons Greer and Brown from office so she can regain her power and maybe sell an old police station or two before 2007.
We all know about Ken Kietly and Jamboretz and their recall committee they started to help everyone out so Patti can rule with her six – four or maybe even a seven – three vote. Hell, who knows, anything can happen as we all have seen so far, deceit, deceit, deceit, Patti’s style.
When the auditor finds there are problems with bidding procedure and sales of city owned real estate and maybe grant monies and the way they are disbursed and she has the audacity to say she could not find anything legally wrong with the procedures, I believe she should step back and give it to the prosecutor and let him decide if it’s all legal or maybe illegal. Then we could see where the money ends up and whom it benefited. Makes sense to me. How about you the taxpayers?
For whatever it’s worth Mayor York and your legal defense fund and all your political soldiers etc. I urge you to ponder the consequences of your decisions, because God’s forgiveness never relieves you of the consequences of your wrongdoing. You are stuck with them. A friend of mine gave me that advice years ago. Makes sense to me for the last 13 years of my life.
Bob Bredensteiner
Dear Editor,
I would like to share a few words with your readers regarding recall. This seems to be a live topic these days. The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of our recall group. Early this year I joined a group circulating a petition to recall Mayor York. Before I share a few thoughts on that subject let me state a few facts.
Our group has no major funding. We don’t need any. We are not inundating the population of St. Charles with hateful literature. We are simply a group of St. Charles City registered voters circulating a petition. Most of us are up in years and we are longtime residents. No one active in the circulation of our petition is pad to do so. I don’t believe citizenship should be hired out.
When I first decided to immerse myself in this activity I had to do some soul searching. I had to ask myself a few questions. What right did I have to attempt to unseat a public official, our top local public official, who had been placed in that position by a majority of the St. Charles citizenry? The Mayor is reported to be a fine Christian woman, a woman active in her church. It is right for one Christian to put themselves against another Christian? What is the morality of a recall action? I thought about these issues.
The legal right to take such an action was no problem. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution speaks “of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances”. Our City Charter spells out the right of the people to recall a local public official and gives explicit instructions for doing so.
What about the fact that our Mayor was chosen by a majority of the electorate? Is our recall group attempting to subvert the will of the majority? Not at all. We are attempting to determine what is the current will of the majority. Do people feel the same about her, her actions, and the people behind her, as they did when she was first elected? The temperament and preferences of the electorate may have changed. The temperament and actions of the Mayor may have changed. Situations in our City may have changed. I think the electorate has remained fairly constant in their desires and expectations but I think the Mayor and the political scene in our City has changed considerably. A recall petition, and a recall election should things progress that far, are simply a sampling of public opinion to determine whether the public still feels as they did when that official was first elected. If the majority is proven to still support the Mayor, nothing changes, and nothing should change. In our country the majority rules. On the other hand, if the majority is proven to desire change, then we have not only the right but the duty to pursue this recall activity.
What about the morality of a recall action? I had a problem with this. I attempted to find a biblical parallel. I couldn’t find one, or more accurately, I didn’t recognize one. I was discussing this issue with a friend, telling her of my concern. It didn’t take her very long at all. She said, “We are chasing the money changers out of the temple”. I felt she was right on. We are indeed chasing the moneychangers out of the temple of our City government. Moneychangers? Yes! Organizations of home builders and developers have circled the wagons around our Mayor and are now desperately trying to change the composition of our City Council so they can have a City government which will do their bidding; so they can have a free hand in the control of our government; so they can get sweetheart deals from City Hall; so they can build homes and subdivisions outside our boundaries to standards less than our City standards and then expect to bring them into our confines; so they can devise huge projects for our City, with the blessing of the Mayor and the council, which we don’t want, don’t need, and can’t afford. They are indeed moneychangers, changing our money into their money. We need a Mayor who does not answer to these groups. I feel the only way to drive the money changers from the temple is to find a new Mayor – if a majority of the St. Charles electorate agrees.
If you share these views, drop by the library any Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm and add y our name to our petition. The library is not involved in our group or its activities but merely furnishes a place for petitioners to circulate petitions – any duly authorized petition.
Join our fight; help us take back our City.
Glen Dashner
