To Be or Not To Be Skunks

To all who wrote your concerns we’ve been busy and busy musing and we’ve been thinking what we need to do with this blog.

It was quite a to-do at the Council meeting last week. Not a proud moment for many we would say.

Terry Riley’s thuggery needs to stop. He’s a verbal bully and still is not accomplishing anything of note. If he’s interested in a political legacy he’s running out of time and allies. He’s a smart man who could have done a lot of good. Unfortunately he chose to play the games.

We started this blog for several reasons. One reason was to have a safe place for good City Employees to vent their frustrations, disappointments, rage etc because personally, I don’t want to lose any more good people, good and true and talented civil servants. We thought we could be the release on the pressure cooker.

We also thought we could be an instrument for positive change not solely an “Agony Aunt” venue. We have a metropolitan newspaper that for political and economic reasons has essentially opted out of any true investigative reporting. People had great hopes for the piece they did on the Citadel mess but the editor(s) whimped out or the reporters did a half-ass job or both. So the Star is not a help.

We have an impotent internal auditor, so there is no recourse there.

We have a new, naïve, inexperienced, gullible, uncourageous City Council. And of course, then there’s Gloria, Mark & Tara……

We hoped that this blog would entice, encourage those who have the power to change City Hall by exposing the abuses, the incompetence, the thievery, oh, the thievery. And this is not happening. Those who have the power to ‘fix’ City Hall have chosen to stay silent in their hell and want to be rescued. Nobody can ‘rescue’ you if you don’t give us something to hold on to.

We know there is suspicion that there is no true pornography on LT’s computer. It could be just incredibly poor taste or poor judgment. If true, what does this say about Wayne fueling the fire, adding to the intrigue and suspicions with blocking access to the computer, threatening Roy etc? If true, LT is still guilty of using City property in an inappropriate manner and as an Assistant City Manager her punishment should be more severe.

It doesn’t help anyone when a City employee writes in to the GPSs with stories of sexual harassment, verbal abuse, bullying bordering on violence, stealing (everything from padding the expense accounts to walking off with equipment, or using equipment for a private business or running a business on city time with city equipment etc) and then say “But you can’t print this because they’ll know I’m the one who told you.” What do you want us to do with this information? As we’ve stated before, you are a participant in the creation of your own reality. If it’s awful – then you have to take the risk to facilitate the change that you want.

This Mayor and City Council need a 2x4 between their eyes ‘to get it’. Watergate had ‘Deep Throat’ who led the investigators to the smoking guns. We need the same thing. Whether it’s this blog, the Star or going to the State Auditor’s office.

We skunks, want to be agents of change to help make City Hall the environment it can and should be for the sake of the citizens of Kansas City and for those who choose to be civil servants. We’re not interested in being the Ann Landers of the blogs.

Wayne Cauthen has been the focus because we are a strong City Manager form of government. If the head is corrupt and incompetent the body follows. We know there are others who deserve attention. We did not want energies to be diluted we wanted to focus on the most important position. Unless the City Manager changes, nothing else changes or gets fixed.

The Citizens of KC have very critical issues to deal with that will cost us all Billions of dollars. We need the best leadership and the best team to pull this off. If Wayne’s not the man then what can we do?. What are you willing to do?

We can be the diamond of the Midwest – or we can be west Detroit or Denver East – whichever you prefer. It’s up to you.

So this takes us back to the opening. To be or not to be the Agony Aunt or to be or not to be a viable tool facilitating change for true blue civil service and making Kansas City government the envy of all, not the laughing stock, wink, wink, nod, nod (for the Monty Python fans out there) corrupt joke we’ve are now.

We’re close to completing setting up a series of forwarding mail services. But before we pay for all of this – we need to know from you whether or not we should continue to be the Skunks at the Garden Party of KCMO City Hall. Let us know – let’s do a poll.