Public works director: Council members "don't
understand how government works"; City Hall should buy up and tear down central
city neighborhoods
COLUMBIA, 10/21/10 (Beat Byte)
-- It's been a jaw-dropping, loose-lipped few
weeks for Columbia City public works director John Glascock, if recent accounts
are to be believed.
Glascock reportedly told his staff that at least three
Columbia City Council members were incompetent with regard to government
affairs, then repeatedly condemned an entire neighborhood to the scrap heap of a
city wrecking ball. His latter comments sparked ire at
a neighborhood association meeting Tuesday night.
Ignorant Council?
During heated city budget debates last month, Glascock
allegedly urged public works employees to spend their entire budgets lest they
lose the money next year. To make his point, he reportedly disparaged City
Council members during an employee meeting.
"Mr. Glascock said the three business people on
the Council did not understand how government works, and if we did not
spend all of the money in our budget, they may use the money for something else
and decrease our budget," a city employee explained. "We have been
instructed by Mr. Glascock to spend 100% of our budget this fiscal
year. Funds are even being transferred from one budgeted
account to another to accomplish this. The concern is that if the
budgeted money in a specific account is not spent, it will be reduced
next fiscal year to what was spent."
Apparently city staffers are taking Glascock at his word.
"Lately, the arrival of the UPS truck at the Grissum building is just like
Christmas," the employee explained. "Many purchases have been for
big ticket items that were not specifically budgeted. As a matter of policy,
these should all be reported to Council."
Neighborhood wrecking
ball?
In other reported episodes, Glascock has told city
employees, neighbors, and a retired MU professor involved in stormwater policies
that rather than repair serious, longstanding sewer, stormwater, and
flooding problems in North Central Columbia residential areas, City Hall
should instead buy the homes and tear them down.
The remarks sparked angry concern at
Tuesday night's North Central Columbia Neighborhood Association (NCCNA) meeting,
during which board members voted to publicly condemn Glascock's flippancy in a
letter for the Columbia City Council's meeting this Monday.
The letter asks Council members to "direct city
staff to exercise caution in telling concerned neighbors that the
solution to the inadequate sanitary sewer and stormwater conditions throughout
the city is for the city to buy their homes. Those statements trigger memories
of an ugly past that Columbia experienced in the mid 1960s,
when redevelopment of 'blighted' areas caused a rift in our downtown
neighborhoods that continues to this day."
During "urban redevelopment" just four decades ago, City
Hall, the Federal government, and a cadre of good ol' boys engineered a massive,
eminent domain-driven land grab that decimated black business owners and black
residents across hundreds of central Columbia acres. Poor drainage and
inadequate sewer lines were among the many excuses used to label the areas
"blighted."
Glascock's comments, the NCCNA letter explains, "seem
geared towards intimidating good citizens from coming forward with their
concerns, rather than addressing the problems we collectively face and finding
solutions."
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