Tuesday, March 28th, 2006,
by Fred (,
Florissant, ofallon, politics, St. Charles county, St. Louis
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Suburban politics gets messier
Former O’Fallon Aldermanic President Lyn Schipper has requested almost six months of e-mail and cell phone records as well as city credit card receipts from Florissant Mayor Robert Lowery Sr. Lowery’s son, Robert Lowery Jr., is O’Fallon’s city administrator.Lowery Sr. called Schipper’s request “pure harassment.”
“I have enough going on in Florissant. I don’t need to worry about that political mess. Unfortunately that’s my son’s job,” Lowery said.
“I have nothing to hide. I have nothing to do with the city of O’Fallon, thank God.”
Florissant responded to the request with a $1,540 bill to Schipper. The bill covers $1,200 in projected legal fees and $340 in research fees required to process some 50,000 documents.
The $1200 legal bill follows the $34,000 demanded by O’Fallon in order to comply with Schipper’s request there. Clearly, neither city intends to comply with the Sunshine Law, which requires public records to be provided within 72 hours. The legal fees also violate the Sunshine Law, which is quite specific as to the fees that may be charged:
Fees for copying public records, except those records restricted under section 32.091, RSMo, shall not exceed ten cents per page for a paper copy not larger than nine by fourteen inches, with the hourly fee for duplicating time not to exceed the average hourly rate of pay for clerical staff of the public governmental body. Research time required for fulfilling records requests may be charged at the actual cost of research time. Based on the scope of the request, the public governmental body shall produce the copies using employees of the body that result in the lowest amount of charges for search, research, and duplication time. [italics mine]
And what precisely, other than family connections and a little bit of old-fashioned developer shake-down, led the mayor of Florissant, Mo to attend a meeting in O’Fallon, a city 25 miles away? How often does the mayor meet with developers in, say, Arnold? The whole thing stinks — the corruption, the soap opera infighting, using “legal fees” to obstruct public record access.
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Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006,
by Fred (,
government, Missouri, ofallon, St. Charles county
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Here’s a novel approach to open government - require any critics seeking records to post exorbitant deposits before records are released
A special city attorney and the wife of a former alderman have been asked to pay more than $34,000 if they want to see what the mayor, city staff and elected officials have been talking about over e-mail and cell phones during the past year.O’Fallon special attorney Richard Fischer said the city will not comply with five public record requests he made last month unless he first pays a $17,250 deposit to cover anticipated attorney fees to determine what can be released.
This all relates to a series of messy disputes in O’Fallon, which is now stuck with paying outside counsel $225 per hour for legal support because it doesn’t want to have special counsel who question the powers that be. So much for transparency in government.
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Tuesday, March 21st, 2006,
by Fred (,
St. Charles county, UFCW, unions, Walmart, Wentzville
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Wentzville sided yesterday with Wal-Mart, rejecting union-led opposition to a 70,000 square foot expansion that will allow the retailer to sell groceries at its Wentzville location.
Before the vote, an organizer for Wake-Up Wal-Mart, a group critical of the retailer [and front group for the UFCW], told aldermen that Wal-Mart workers earn about $9 an hour, compared with the $13 hourly wage paid workers at Schnucks stores. The presence of more low-paying jobs will produce a “a quick spiral downward” in residents’ overall spending power, David Cook [activist from the UFCW] said.
This is typical pro-union/anti-corporate groupthink. How exactly will the presence of non-union jobs produce a quick spiral in spending power? Will it be the new Wal-Mart employees who have income where before they had none? Will it be the non-employees who have a cheaper place to buy groceries? Choice is good. Competition is good. This decision provides both.
This fight wasn’t ever about consumers, of course. It was about Schnuck’s and the union doing everything in their power to keep out a competitor. Until Wal-Mart expands at Wentzville Crossing, the Schnuck’s at that same location only has to compete with a Save-a-Lot in Wentzville, which serves a different market, and a Dierberg’s in O’Fallon, which is 12.5 miles away. Now they’ll have to improve their customer service, compete on price and improve the quality and selection of their merchandise. Maybe they can start by keeping rotten milk off the shelves.
And with anything Wal-Mart, it was about a bunch of New Urbanist elitist utopians who have never set foot in a Wal-Mart and wouldn’t be caught dead with the sort of people who have to shop at Wal-Mart telling other people that their economic choices are unacceptable.
Wentzville made the right decision.
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Monday, March 20th, 2006,
by Fred (,
St. Charles county, St. Louis, UFCW, Walmart, Wentzville
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The Wentzville Board of Aldermen is set to meet today to consider Wal-Mart’s proposal for a 70,000 foot expansion of its Wentzville Parkway location. The Board was to vote on the proposal at its regular meeting on March 8, but “Wake Up Wal-Mart”, an activist group opposed to the retailer and front for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, claimed the meeting violated the state open meetings law because there was not enough room in the council chamber for all the union activists.
Section 610.020 of the Sunshine Law requires that “[e]ach meeting shall be held at a place reasonably accessible to the public and of sufficient size to accommodate the anticipated attendance by members of the public, and at a time reasonably convenient to the public, unless for good cause such a place or time is impossible or impractical.” Wentzville likely had no reason to anticipate that a meeting to consider expansion of a retail store at an existing location, which complies with all applicable zoning laws, and which has been anticipated for at least five years, could not be held in council chambers. Nevertheless, Wentzville tabled the matter until it could find an alternate location. The meeting is now scheduled for 6 p.m. at Wentzville Middle School.
The union is, of course, not happy with this arrangement either. They claim that the city didn’t give enough notice, even though notice of the meeting was posted on Wednesday, well in advance of Monday’s meeting. The Sunshine Act only requires 24 hours notice. They claim that the meeting should be held at the Wentzville General Motors plant instead of the middle school, which would conveniently have allowed union members at GM to stay after work to protest the plan.
Opposition to Wal-Mart is de rigeur these days, but this doesn’t even rise to the level of most Wal-Mart arguments. This is about Schnuck’s and its union employees trying to keep out a competitor, even though Wal-Mart only agreed not to build a Supercenter in the first place to allow Schnuck’s to gain a foothold in Wentzville. The Aldermen should do the right thing by their constituents and approve the Wal-Mart plan.
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