Good heavens, another year has gone by. How quick that was. The stock market may be down some, but at least we got a new honest President. It will take him a year to get the stench out of the White House. Maybe we can get some GOOD HONEST Councilmen to run this time, and someone to run for Mayor that can bring honor and honesty back to the City of La Grange. Since 1993, we have seen our Charter and Ordinances trashed and violated so much it is a wonder the State of Missouri evens recognizes La Grange as a City. Maybe we can get a Mayor and some new Councilmen to get the stench out of our City Hall. I hear that some good people would run for Mayor or Councilman, but fear what they will be getting themselves into and how much liability they will inherit. Some fear what the gambling boat will do to the City and they won't know how to cope with it.

There as to be someone to run for Mayor that will be willing to work with the people of La Grange, work with the Churches, and most of all be willing to ask the people of the town for advice and not be a puppet to a couple of renegade Councilmen. Someone the people can get behind 

I have been called, emailed and stopped on the street asking almost the same question, mostly in subtle ways, and some times in a joking way, if the La Grange Police department has moved into the mobile home on main street. They keep asking why the chiefs car is there all the time. They rumor that at night, it gets there around midnite and doesn't leave most of the time for an hour, and sometimes a lot more than that. They kid around about it being their "stakeout" place.

What kind of parents are they that put themselves out as good people in town, that not only smoke and drink, but submit their children to deadly second hand smoke daily and get drunk in front of their children?

Both County papers have articles regarding the Avenue of the Saints and the completion of Highway 61 from La Grange to the State line. YET, NOT ONE, not one, City official, Mayor, Councilman, or Chamber President, has been there to represent La Grange, EVEN though, the gambling boat would be the main one to benefit from this new highway.

I had to go to town this afternoon and I followed the lady cop down main street, when she got to Tony's garage, she had to go out around a Pepsi truck that was blocking the street.

  Then I saw this sign behind the bank

If you click on it and blow it up, you will see that the ALLEY is now Washington Street and Washington Street is now Wharf Street. Wharf street is a half block away across the railroad track.

The Press News Journal had a couple of articles worth noticing. One is the La Grange Court news. Only about $500 was collected for all those radar traps. Not nearly enough to pay the gas bills used for those Stake outs on Route P, let alone $3000 plus wages, ect.

Then on the front page. The Street Super. He cited added fuel costs to remove the snow. One thing is, if he rides around in the truck all day anyhow, then how can there be any added cost to ride around with the snow plow up?? He also spoke about 10-12 hour two-man crew on some days and weekends. We all know he spoke in jest don't we? Translation. Two-man crews = 2 men riding around in the same truck with the blade up. 10-12 hours = it takes three days to put in 10-12 hours of actual work. Weekends = he drove down town last Saturday to Caseys with the blade up and back home where it was warm. Over budget = he has no idea what it cost YOU the taxpayer to drive around on snowpack and ice.

And final - the F & M Bank finally broke loose with some cash and donated to the fire station. Fire Chief Greg (I don't live in La Grange) Heindsleman and Jim (locker room) Ellision scarfed it up. Now, our volunteer firemen can go to station, kick back, watch some videos, cook a few pizzas, grab a cold drink from the fridge, microwave some popcorn and have a nice floor in the bathroom to miss on. Mr. Ensor wants to thank one and all. 

PS: The Weenie Wagon is closed til Jan 8th, 2001 The water bill says trash will be picked up on Thuirsday next week like this week. City will be closed Jan 1, 2001. The last day to sign up for Councilman, Mayor and marshall will be Jan16, 2001 and your water bill may not be correct.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. In riding around town to view all the decorations, I believe that Raymond Staumbaugh had the most visitors. Cars were parked everywhere. 

I wonder who it was that had three feet of water in their basement over the weekend???

Dateline December 19, 2000 7:30 am. Place City Hall. Before anyone else could ever get in City hall, the present Mayor slipped in and signed up for the position of Mayor again, just to make sure his name was on top. That is so the 187 Florida voters can find him.

Ok, I think I got this straight. The place was out on Route P. It was about 1 mile or so on this road that there is a gravel road that goes to the right and kind of down a hill. It was at this location on a dark night a week or so ago that the La Grange Police car was seen parked. Two people in the car, a man and a woman. I believe I heard that they were on a stakeout. Or something like that.

Then a few days after that, I was told that a lady stopped at Caseys to get gas. A man came walking down the street and went over to her and walked her into Caseys. When they came out, I was told that he planted an AL Gore kiss on her and looked around to make sure everyone saw him. No, it wasn't Elmer. 

There are couple of sayings that used to be like, you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. And the other was something like, Who is the last to know? 

If you are all wondering why the streets have stayed snow packed and not cleaned to the ditches is the fact that Sam green has been sick and off work. We will all have to wait till he gets back to work before the streets are cleaned.

And, if you plan to go to Canton, you might want to know that the Police Chief in Canton does not want our police department to get ahead of him. He has been using radar to catch speeders coming into town. One local was caught on Sunday morning around 7 am. If he works hard enough, he may be able to get some of those boat people passing through and get some of those winnings. 

More people than I thought was paying attention to the last council meeting. A whole lot of people are talking about the conflict of interest with Mike Lowe and Ralph (pave my drive free) Martin making motions and voting to do business with their employer Ayers Oil Co. 

This morning while waiting for the school buses to arrive the street super came down the road (with the snow plow up in the air) and came around the corner to head down the hill for coffee and donuts. But, there was a school bus coming to the parking lot and the bus had to get over into the ditch as the street super was in the middle of the road. The road wasn't wide enough because the street super won't put the blade down and clean the streets to the ditches. And if the plow is down, the sander won't work. It is too difficult for him to do two things at one time. The Mayor is so proud and so is 187 voters.

Rumor has it that the Mayor's Weenie Wagon is now a Water Wagon. It seems that over the weekend a water line froze up and broke and water was filling up the Weenie Wagon.

Another rumor has it that a city office worker needs another city employee to come to her daily, seems she complained to the Mayor that this other employee wasn't bowing down and the Mayor has again mentioned the word fire. 

RUMOR has it that the Mayor is having the City employee Christmas dinner at the Bird Nest in Canton tonight. It seems that none of the restaurants here in town are good enough, well the ice cream shop is, but the mayor didn't want any conflict of interest get involved so he let brother Lyle have the money. Sounds more like the Chamber of Commerce and the LRO doesn't it. Boy, 187 people have to be tickled to death. You 187 voters who voted for this Mayor have to just love it. I'll bet that when that gambling boat gets it restaurant going there will dinners there. Won't there Mayor, Ralph, Fred, and Mike?

One thing for sure, I found out real quick that the City street super DOES NOT clean the alleys by the mayors ice cream shop. This is done at the neighbors expense and has been that way for over ten years.

I hear that the Youth center pizza party has been canceled for Saturday evening. 

It makes you wonder why some people are even on the City Council. One councilman (trying to do the right thing) contacts the Missouri Municipal league and finds that it is in the best interest of the city to HIRE a city manager. Then the Mayor and the most intelligent attorney in the world say it will destroy the city charter and they will lose the boat. How stupid can they get? Even the other councilmen did not even read the MML report put in their folders days before the met. 

Then for two councilmen, Mike Lowe (who works for Ayers) and Ralph (pave my drive free) Martin (who works for Ayers) not to see any indication of conflict of interest by voting to give Ayers the diesel fuel contract. How stupid can that be??

And for a Mayor not to bring this up was total ignorance. BUT, 187 people are tickled to death.

You can sure tell that there isn't any leadership with our Mayor. The street super waited until the foundry workers went to work before starting to clean the streets and quit before everyone came home from work out of town. The big truck didn't start until after 3pm. Streets after two days are still snow covered and the only ones with the snow winged back to the ditch is the ones Sam did. Many comments around town are why did the Mayor buy a NEW STAINLESS STEEL spreader box that doesn't work half the time. It seems that if the blade is down the spreader doesn't work, and when the blade is up the spreader works on snow pack. BUT, the street super knows how to keep his job, he makes sure the Mayors alley, but no other alley, and also the councilmen's drives are cleaned FIRST. You can bet the Ralph (clean my drive first) Martin and Fred (clean my drive second) Weezel won't say anything. If it wasn't for Francis Ellison, downtown would be long forgotten.

For years the old Gardner Denver plant had been dumping thousands of gallons a day into the city sewer. Since then with recycling and usage of water cutbacks done by the foundry it is now a small portion of what is used to be. Now, the mayor and Council are worried about a few thousand gallons a month the Casino might have. It didn't bother them to let BFI dump who knows what into the sewer and then let BFI multiply the dumps without supervision, so how can a few thousand from the casino hurt? 187 people have to be tickled to death. 

And now guess what folks, the council has decided to send out questionnaires to you  to ask for your opinion. Glory be, after screwing over the public for over 6 years, they are now going to ask you your opinion.

It seems the Mayor is trying to stop any talk about making the Mayors salary and councilmen salary high enough to get others to run and make the Mayors job a full time position. He wants to wait until AFTER the last signup day so he can be the only one running and make all the money. WELL FOLKS now that we know the Mayors salary will be a livable wage, some one else will sign up now.

Ed Ensor and Fire Chef Heindselman are at every council meeting, no matter whether it is a regular meeting or a special meeting WANTING MORE MONEY. And the council gives it to them.

Poor Police Chief, he tried to promote his lady cop over Hydron and get her MORE MONEY, but the Council said no. And rightly so. Now the chief is playing favorites. By the way, where are those drugs? Guns?

Then the poor poor water super, who was told he needed new equipment was again told to GET MORE BIDS. Well, maybe next year. 

Those new Fire Association by-laws are really something. The by-laws are rigged on who can be fire chief, and now to be a VOLUNTEER fireman, you have to have a BACKGROUND check and take a physical and no fireman can go to a fire if he has had a few beers. Way to go Danny Logsdon. But wait, does the alcohol bit include fire chiefs?

A lot is popping around City hall. First a possible lawsuit against the lady cop for slamming a lady down on the concrete sidewalk the other night, knowing the woman already has had back problems. Then the lady cop tried to get other people involved to cover herself, but that didn't happen. Seems like Fred (no prayer here) Weezel has decided he has done all the damage he can do to the City and doesn't want to attend anymore council meetings. Seems like he has missed more than he has made. Who cares, we are better off that he doesn't appear.

Rumor has it that Ralph (pave my drive free) Martin is deciding not to run for councilman again. I guess that now the gambling boat is assured and a new position is assured, there is no need to sell out the City anymore. Rumor as it he is planning to apply for the job as City manager. Let's see now, so far he sold out school, was in charge of Project brighter Future and can't account for all the money that was raised. Was a member of the La Grange Revitalization Organization and no form of accounting has been seen from that group, AND HE WANTS the people of La Grange to TRUST him with $1.5 million a year city finance. Look at the debt the City is in bow, can you imagine what he could do with that kind of money? Good grief Charlie Brown!

The Mayor is adamant about NOT wanting a City manager. He thinks HE is the most intelligent person in La Grange and HE can manage all that money. Yeah! just like the ice cream shop, the construction company and the weenie wagon. Sure! 

He tried to intimidate and scare Mike Lowe and Steve Griesbaum at the last council meeting with help from the most intelligent lawyer in Missouri, the city attorney, that hiring a city manager would somehow do something to the City Charter. How stupid can they be? But, 187 are tickled to death.

Well, anyhow, salary increases for the next mayor and councilmen as been voted down. Rumor has it that whenever the police committee has a special meeting without the police chief there, the mayor runs right to the chief to tell on the council. 

Council meetings after Council meetings are getting to be like court cases and vote counting in Florida. Special meetings are abound. But looking back over all these meetings, a funny thing has surfaced. Every time there is a regular council meeting, the first one of the month, that is printed in the paper, Fred ( no prayer here) Weezel doesn't attend. But in the sneaky meetings where nothing is reported to the paper, he shows up. Talk about sneaky sneaky.

If Mike Lowe and Steve Griesbaum and Roger Sherwood can't find their backbone, why don't you just resign or not run again. It's too bad that Steve can't find his, a lot of people were counting on him.      

Well, I noticed that the street super was out this morning. He, as always, refuses to do Webster from 4th to 5th Street as he thinks that it bothers me, but Street super, I have a four wheel drive. But, my neighbor doesn't and he is the one with a wife that may need medical help real quick. Guess who will be responsible if the ambulance can't get up the hill or help can't get to her Mayor and city council? You are the ones who allow the Street Super to get away with goofing off and not do his work. But 187 people are tickled to death.

I hear that the police department is now attacking two fronts. One is the local pub and now I hear that the police is making foundry workers their new target. I hear that a foundry worker going to work at 4AM, four o'clock in the morning and stopped at the 4 way coming down route C. As he turned north to go to work the local cop in the white police car chased him down and gave him a ticket for NOT STOPPING at the 4way. Now, even if the driver only hesitated at the 4way and went on, who in the hell cares at 4 o'clock in the morning. The driver was given no warning and the cop even made the statement that they were out to get the foundry workers. So much for "to protect and to serve". 187 people are just tickled to death and so is the Mayor and Chief. I even heard the the police committee held a special meeting regarding targeting the foundry workers. Let's see now, they are Ralph (pave my drive free) Martin and Fred (no prayer here) Wiewel and even Mike (suck up to Ralph and Fred) Lowe. Maybe the cops might want to try for those three going to work.

If I owned a pub here in town, I would have a scanner running all the time. If my pub had one, we would have heard the chief chasing cars north of town all night last night. One after another after another. Once I heard where he was chasing everyone down at, I would notify ALL my customers before they left.

 It looks like there might be showdown on hiring a City manager at Monday nites Council meeting. Seems some councilmen want to hire someone intelligent to manage the City and the Mayor and three others don't. At least two of them Ralph (pave my drive free) Martin and Fred (no prayer here) Wiewel think they are the smartest people in the world and want the job and the Mayor thinks he will be Mayor forever and doesn't want his puppet power taken away.

Those awful telltale emails keep on a comin'.

Boy oh boy is there a big rumor going around town now. It seems the mayor and council and the most intelligent city attorney are going to try an AL Gore and make an end run around the City Charter AGAIN. First, they want to make the mayors job a full time position. No problem there, a mayor such as the one we have, who have a lot of excess nonworking time on their hands can be mayor as many hours as he wants. And, the council can vote to make the NEXT mayors salary as much as they want, well, provided they have enough money left over from the police and fire expenses.

But, without getting permission from the Missouri State legislature, changing the time to be mayor from 2 to 4 years will be a stretch. But, with the City attorney that we have, anything is possible, even giving away the city water to the gambling boat. It seems the mayors legal opinion is that the city cannot hire a city administrator, you know, some one with an education, to run the city as the city has a charter. Hello! There is nothing in the Charter that says the city cannot hire someone for anything. 187 people have to be tickled to death with these decisions.

The La Grange Community Youth Center had a grand day last Saturday. The Youth Center has a winter carnival and over 60 kids showed up and Santa Claus was there too. This was sponsored by the Christian Fellowship Group from Culver Stockton College. they held a toy drive for prizes, played games of bean bag and ring toss. There was a lot o food and toys to go around. Go back to the Home Page and under the Youth Center to see some pictures taken there.

I received an email about Wilmas and was told they changed their hours to 10:30am to 9pm Monday through Friday. And another to inform me that the Library is now open. 

 Did you know that Greta Lewis has a styling salon at 504 Lewis Street here in La Grange. You can call her for an appointment at 655-8835. She has been doing this in town for 2 years. She is open Tuesday - Friday 10am to 6pm and Saturdays from 9am to 1pm. When you call her, tell her where you saw it. 

Also Virginia Dickerson, wife of old Ed Dickerson has sent me an email saying that her mail box is now full. You people have overloaded her with too many messages.

Only 16 more shopping days till Christmas. A satellite dish that gets FOX NEW NETWORK is a great idea.  If you are not getting FOX NEWS NETWORK you are getting total liberal biased news. Only FOX NEWS NETWORK tells it like it is and is right on.

The LaBelle paper has an article regarding the Clark County Water District, you know, the one headed by our local Bob Blessing who talked the mayor into selling out La Grange's water. Well, CCWD has filed suit against Kahoka for water lines outside of the City Limits. I wonder how long local resident Bob Blessing will file suit against La Grange. La Grange has three lines running outside of the City. 

The Canton paper has numerous pictures of the Fire Departments NEW/used fire truck. And there is an article where a new bed for the fire brush truck was named in honor of David Burbridge Sr. and among the donors was the La Grange "Auxiliary" Police? Where did they come from and who are they??  

A couple of items of rumors. One is it seems that two City employees made a vehicle trade. It also seems that one City official took extreme advantage of an employee and it may come down to a lawsuit. Shame shame.

The street super had his employee paint the old city truck bed black, Now it looks nice and shiny like new. But, on the other hand he conned the Mayor and Council out of a new sander box for his pickup. Not only a new one but a NEW STAINLESS STEEL one. The reason for the new stainless steel one is the Street Super would not take care of the old one and let it pile up with crud and rust out. This new stainless steel one will allow the Street Super to not have to take care of it either and it is supposed to last longer.

No one can still figure out why the people of La Grange insist on being bad drivers ONLY when the police are on duty. Why can't you people drive better when the police are on duty? You are not bad drivers or criminals any other time, only when the police are on duty. But, 187 people like to get arrested every day.

One of the restaurants in town spent a lot of time and money to expand the restaurant and the promptly started closing in the mornings. With being closed in the afternoon too, eating there is like trying to get mail at the post office or get into the bank. Oh well, this is the idea the grocery store tried.

I have been waiting almost a week now for the fire chief to put on national tv about the arrival of the new fire truck. Wonder why?

Did a global search of the internet regarding Bill Grace, our new gambling boat owner. Seems the Mayor and City Council have refused to introduce him to the community. Wonder why? There are a lot of articles in many papers regarding him. click here. Doesn't seem there is any controversial information but a lot of it.

If you want to really do a complete search of the net, go to cnet.com and download web ferret. Excellent.

We have a new internet user from the La Grange area. Ed and Virginia Dickerson are now on the internet. Their new email address is  vdickers01@aol.com I am sure that they would like to hear from a lot of you. Put them in your address book.