At a recent city council meeting our not so illustrious mayor, Michelle Distler, seemed to possibly be suffering from CRAREC syndrome.
First, she was bemoaning the fact that the council voted to suspend any new board appointments until after the mayoral election. She semed to think that the Planning Commission would suffer by being one member short until January. Question for the mayor: If you are so concerned about the Planning Commission being short why don't you inquire as to the pervasive absenteeism on that body?
At these PC meetings, here are the numbers for how many Commissioners were absent:
July 17.............2 members absent
July 3..............3 members absent
June 21...........2 members absent
June 5............meeting cancelled
May 15..........all present
May 1..........2 members absent
April 17......4 members absent
April 3........1 member absent
Second, let's talk a history lesson. A member of the council questioned why the mayor chose the person she did, when another individual, Dave Myres had also expressed interest. The mayor responded that previously when Mr. Myres had applied a member of the council had thought it was a negative since he had run for office (council) and lost. Hmmm, is running for office and losing a reason not to be appointed? Stand by, the history lesson is coming. The fact that a person chooses to run for office does, IMHO, show that they are interested in serving the city. OK, here comes the history lesson. The year that Mr. Myres ran for the city council (Ward III) there was a primary in that race. Mr. Myres was the top vote getter, and Justin Adrian was #2. The individual who was the sitting council member at that time Jeff Vaught was #3 and therefore bounced from running in the general election. Now we get to the general election, and yes, Mr. Adrian beat Mr. Myres. But how come Mr. Adrian didn't complete his term as a city council member? How come he resigned? The reason for that is an easy one to answer. That is because Mr. Adrian was convicted of doing things that a teacher (yes, Olathe School District) is not supposed to be doing with a male student. He wound up doing time in county lock up.
Now, let's look at those numbers:
Primary election (2017) Dave Myres 609 Justin Adrian 415 Jeff Vaught 308
General election (2017) Justin Adrian 1128 Dave Myres 1058
Over the years folks have lost elections and then gone on to win other elections or be appointed to various positions of responsibility all over the United States.
