*Do The Right Thing group formed in St. Charles City.
* Note: the “Right Thing” is a registered trade mark of I-ohnya Co. and exactly what the right thing is will be determined by our members. Disagreement with the right thing is grounds for immediate retaliation including but not limited to: recall, threatening telephone calls, letters, e-mails, and smear campaigns.
In agreement with the newly formed group in our town, I believe that everyone needs to “do the right thing.”
A quick journey back to April 2004 and you will remember that, perhaps, the first wrong thing done was the mayor actively campaigning against a councilman with whom she regularly did battle. Certainly, this was the mayor’s right but after Mr. Hoepfner won a sound reelection she probably could guess that there would be some hard feelings. With the newly formed council, Mr. Hoepfner wanted to be vice president and wanted to seat the administration with administration and the legislative body with the legislative body. I was even told that the mayor agreed to the move but just before the meeting that would rearrange the seating, the mayor changed her mind and asked for a vote to force her from her spot.
Early on, there was hope that the new council would be assertive and stand up for all citizens of the community and not just for the well-connected. Council would seek to spend limited resources getting streets resurfaced and sewers upgraded rather than engineer a host of projects that would rest on shelves because it seemed silly to buy plans with no means or will to complete them. I think this was and is the right thing.
Very early on, the council rejected the decision of those in administration to terminate a veteran police officer who was dealing with an issue that may very well have been work related. I never felt prouder than the day we did the right thing and voted for justice for this officer in spite of objections from administration and others at city hall!
Next, council sought to do the right thing by directing the city to keep take-home cars within our own borders because we felt that the police presence this might create should be in driveways and on streets here in St. Charles instead of, say, Wentzville.
This “right thing” apparently didn’t pass the litmus test, however, and what ensued was a battle that included two full page advertisements calling some of us on council “wolves in sheep’s clothing” complete with pretty-cool graphics of the same.
The next “right thing” was to stand up for a police chief who was recognized by all who interviewed him as the best candidate for the job. A compromise was met that brought Williams to town with the understanding that the mayor would have to accept his decision for the chief’s position in return. “Doing the right thing,” council voted for this tradeoff.
This proved foolish because the mayor got her administrator and we got a lot of semantics after William’s choice for the position (Bob Lowery) was refused. Ouch! The right thing kind of felt like betrayal!
Another instance of the right thing was the council looking into ECM’s broken flow meter that made sewer charges inaccurate for some county areas who are using our sewer system. ECM didn’t (and doesn’t) have a contract with the city and sadly, our own residents were paying higher rates than our county counterparts! The right thing for our city was correcting this problem. Furthermore, the right thing was and is to ask the St. Andrew’s development to meet the city standards for storm water and annex into the city limits if they want to use our city sewer system!
In Tom Dempsey’s mind, the right thing was to rush special legislation through Jefferson City to force St. Charles to hook up the new county development that would stay in the county and not meet city storm water codes. The “right thing” sure can be subjective sometimes!
I guess that’s the entire point I want to make here. We aren’t perfect, to be sure, but so much of the fighting at the gold building has it’s roots in the earliest events and I too want the senseless fighting and use of extra-political means to end.
On the other hand, if doing the right thing means becoming a rubber stamp for administration, developers, and others whose interests are not best for my town, then I must take issue!
Unfortunately, I missed the meeting last Thursday (my invitation came very late) so I didn’t get to have input about “doing the right thing.” A week prior, I did go to a meeting of the same group but was asked to leave because some wouldn’t feel comfortable with me being there.
My hope is that the “right thing” becomes a true dialogue between citizens, elected officials, developers, lawyers, etc., and not a monolithic monologue coming from developers and those whose interests are measured by how much money they can make off of St. Charles’ taxpayers!
“Lord, guide our feet, conscience, and deeds!”
