The Official Unofficial Minutes of the WL BOA
July 6th
The political rehabilitation of former Mayor Mike Henderson is complete now that he has been nominated and will receive the Civic Leadership Award tomorrow night at the MML West Gate division meeting. A description of the award from the MML web site:
"This banquet gives our elected officials an opportunity to acknowledge the important contribution of business and civic leaders in developing stronger cities. Each mayor has been asked to select an outstanding civic leader in his or her community. The civic leader selected by your city and his or her spouse will be guests of your city for dinner and will be presented with a Certificate of Appreciation. League President Gerry Welch, mayor of Webster Groves will read a brief statement regarding each honoree’s contributions."
This follows the recent appointment of Henderson to the WL Planning Commission. The nomination came from Mayor Jerry Bos as did the nomination for the Leadership Award. Time heals all wounds or maybe Mike is the beneficiary of Bos' total disengagement during the period Henderson was Mayor. I know the loyalists from the St Patrick's crew will point to WL biggest annual beer bust, the the St Patties CC party, as a monumental contribution to civic pride and achievement...I know some of the proceeds have been used to buy equipment for the Police Department. That's nice.
Henderson's tenure as mayor was one of the more turbulent terms in recent memory, culminating in a spanking at the polls by more than a 2 to 1 margin in a huge election turn out. His lack of leadership included a key role in the promotion (with Paul Gross) of the Ambulance District, his first budget for the City (prepared by Paul Gross), repeated violation of the Sunshine Law, opposition to the ban on guns on City property, and more, much more. This lead to a unanimous resolution of censure passed by the BOA.
Party planner and partier? Yes. Civic leader? Not so much, the voters of WL have already decided that. Another measure of how disconnected Jerry was and is to the reality of leading the community.
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12 comments:
I say, well deserved!
I agree with 807am -- well deserved comments Mike! This citys' citizens will be 'paying' for Hendersons' including us in the Ambulance District forever.
Very funny, 4:55am. Only a moron like you would take it that way. Mike Henderson has done a lot of good for this community and city. Mike Moratz, all of this "bad" that you write about happened on your watch as city alderman. Why did you allow all of this turmoil to happen? What did you do to stop it from happening? Is this performance as alderman what you use to currently judge others that hold that position? If so, I understand why you so vehemently oppose anyone who does "good" for our city! Amazingly, without you, this city is in pretty good shape without ANY major turmoil!
I will concede Mike can throw a nice beer bash...on St Pats...in the Community Center. I challenge you to name three things Henderson did (that were positive)during his term. I rather doubt you were around at the BOA to see him in action. As I mentioned, the resolution for censure was unanimous, and he was saved by the bell on recall because the election was imminent... in which he got creamed...guess your perception of his leadership during his term doesn't match the vast majority of the electorate. As far as my record I challenge you as well. What didn't you like? Easy to take pot shots from the cheap seats, come on up to the big time, put your name on the record. At least what I put on the blog is out there for you to agree or slam...always on the record.
Biggest indication he was not a leader
He was led by nose and was a tool of Elwood
I wasn't here to see all of the "Badness" while Henderson was in office, but I must question on a comment mad by 8:33pm. Were you an alderman at that time Mike? If so, I must ask why would you place all of the blame on Henderson when you would have been voted in by the people as well. Why were you not making sure things were done "CORRECTLY"?? I hate to say this as I know it will sound smug, but "one man did not make all the mistakes" it seems as though every time there is a problem you always want to blame it on 1 or 2 people. Interesting
8:17
My three colleagues at the time (Rittenhouse/Clark/Cummings) and I did plenty. From the budget process, nominations for committees, dealing with numerous administrative problems (and personel), replacing the City Attorney who had a cozy relationship with the Mayor, replacing the Auditor, replacing the Computer administrator and more...with Mike either opposed or simply unwilling to deal with the problems. He wanted to pave the boat lot, we said no. Instead we began the process of segregating boat lot fees to a separate fund, so the money wasn't dumped into the general fund. There is more, much more and I have notes from all of the meetings...there were many and they were long. I was delighted to see the voters in record numbers vote him out.
His hallmark project was the Ambulance District fiasco. You might recall the voters here in Weatherby Lake gave it a big thumbs down...in big numbers, wasn't even close. Does that say anything about his leadership?
The best that Jerry could say was Mike "served as Mayor" when it came to his city accomplishments. I guess that says it all.
I see...so you (and your cohorts) simply said "no" to everything he tried to do and then you were able to sit back and say he accomplished nothing???
Look, Mike Henderson has done a lot of good for this city and, as they say, "let no good deed go unpunished". I do not know what the big deal is/was about the ambulance district decision you continue to harp about but what I can tell you I think our ambulance service is quite good...actually, very good. If this is about a decision that led us to pay more for it I personally do not have a problem with that. It is great service.
Dear 2:49
I know you are clueless regarding the ambulance situation, so I will be gentle. Yes we have good ambulance service...and we had good ambulance service. The difference is how much more we pay for the same good service. The whole gambit behind the situation was to get service for the unicorporated parts of the county...which the county commissioners were unwilling to take responsibility. So Dusenberry/Gross/Henderson and the rest to the rescue. Henderson was duped in my estimation, but no matter. He made a commitment to the effort on behalf of the City, without consent or knowledge of the BOA. In the end your taxes went up and service remains the same. By the way, when you call 911, the order of response is usually 1)WL Police, 2)SPFD, 3)EMS...
I'll stand by my comments regarding Mr Henderson and give you a discount of 33per cent, name two achievements during his tenure.
Thanks Mike for your response. Now, I have an important question for you to answer. I have heard the "we had an increase in our taxes" comment before as it pertains to the Ambulance District decision by Henderson. What I really want to understand is "what does that mean in terms of dollars and cents"? Can you please explain to me how many dollars more did this action/decision cost those of us that pay taxes? How bad was the damage? I am looking for specifics here because just saying "we had to pay more taxes" can mean anything from one cent to thousands. Please explain to us what the cost difference was.
Thanks!
8:07
Will respond after I get home (on the road for business), I'll have to check my notes for the financial facts.
In the meantime, just to put in perspective, the financial aspect was just one piece of the issue. At that time we had our own Ambulance District, run by WL citizens. They negotiated (with Mast) the contract and set the rate(s). There was no overhead, we took care of ourselves. With the vote to form the South Platte District, ours was disbanded and we lost WL control of our service. Our levy went up, the same provider MAST, continued service to WL. No decrease in response times, no improvement in service. Parkville got a unit positioned closer to them. We just paid more...you can decide but for me, why would we pay anything more and lose local control?
Thanks, I will look forward to hearing just how much the decision did impact our taxes. Mike, usually people want something like this for a reason...what was the "other side" of this issue? What did Mike stand to gain by giving up his city's "control" of the ambulance service? Why would he want to do something that would hurt the very city where he was mayor? I have to believe there was a reason and that the reason was discussed at the time.
I am not sure that just because we had "control" that it was a good thing. Just my opinion and again, I would be interested in knowing just how much this ended up costing us.
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