Last week’s Brentwood Board of Alderman meeting was the first meeting of the board since the Missouri Ethics Commission found St. Louis advertising executive Glenn Jamboretz guilty of campaign law violations prior to the April 2012 Brentwood elections.
Among other things, Jamboretz sent three anonymous mailings to Ward 1 residents that targeted candidate Maureen Saunders.
Brentwood mayor Pat Kelly commented in the meeting that if “Glenn Jamboretz said that he was doing those letters in the campaign as a favor to me, that’s unbeknown to me.”
Resident Matt Saunders (husband of alderwoman Maureen Saunders) said that’s not what Jamboretz said. “He was invited into the election as a favor to you,” Saunders said.
Kelly said he was glad that was clarified.
“I didn’t have anything to do with those letters,” he said. “I thought he was going to help Jim (Bischoff) with scheduling his campaign and doing some fund raising.”
Kelly said there is no way he would think that Bischoff had anything to do with the letters, and “whether you believe it or not, I had nothing to do with that.”
He said he’s gotten his share of threatening mail as an elected official.
“And to think that I would do that to somebody else, and people would think that I would do that to somebody else really hurts me, and I had nothing to do with it, period, and If I had known I would have stopped it,” Kelly said.
Here Here – I could not agree more with these comments. After the mayor’s quotes, let’s see if he is really serious.
His words have opened the doors for Wynn, Robertson and Toohey to call for an investigation.
The Mayor said in the last meeting the money from expiring TIF’s is coming in sooner than expected so money should not be the issue.
Mr. Mayor, you do now have the opportunity to finally have actions to follow up your words.
We the people will see if you are truly a man of your word or if you will again find an excuse not to act.
Mr. Doug Miner – the only question you forgot to ask was, “Mayor Kelly, what are you going to do to stop this type of election antics in the city of Brentwood?”. It would be nice to hear his answer.
I find it difficult to believe the Mayor’s statement about having no knowledge of this behavior. Given Brentwood has seen this behavior before and Jamboretz was in the news for exactly these kinds for activities, again I have a hard time believing his statements.
Also, for the Mayor to compare people calling him out to a citizen of Brentwood running for the first time is hardly an even comparison. Mr. Mayor your activities speak for themselves, you had the city breaking law, making illegal payroll payments to firefighters, breaking state law in paying employees for attendance and health care to Alderman and yourself. Citizens have a right to be upset at you, your brought this onto yourself. They should be professional about their critique of you, that you and I agree. There is no room for unneeded name calling as Jamboretz showed. Still your actions, activities and decisions put you in this position. The Alderman Jamboretz went after had not made any such decisions other than to try to turn our city around by asking for a State Audit that uncovered all your lack of oversight.
I agree with the above, if you really believe what you have stated, call for the investigation and root out this small group of citizens so this will stop.
We will wait and see if the Mayor is serious or not about stopping this type of election behavior. This was not the first election where it took place. If the Mayor asks the Alderman to investigate we know he is serious, if not, many residents will continue to believe that while he did not know the details, he did invite this behavior into Brentwood. While just my opinion, I think if we do investigate we may find the Mayor is the one that introduced Jamboretz to the citizens behind the ugliness.
In the past under these circumstances, we will here the city has no money. When it is something the Mayor and his core group want, suddenly money is not object. For us that follow Brentwood politics we cannot make heads or tails of any core beliefs by our leaders. At times we here about best practices, other times it does not matter, same with the money. Again, the standards change based on the Mayor and what he wants to happen.
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