The fact is, I don’t know Mayor Yenni on that level to
determine whether I like or dislike him as a person. And I probably never will
know him that way.
No, Mayor Yenni won’t be buying me lunch anytime soon, and,
even if he did, I would pay for lunch myself. But, Mayor Yenni, you can stop
mailing me invitations to your fundraisers though and save the postage. Don’t
know why you took me off the City of Kenner’s Press Release email list (which
is free) but you insist on continuing to solicit money from me at every
opportunity.
I’ve always tried to be cordial with Mayor Yenni, even when
he has not been very cordial with me.
Case in point, the last time I spoke with Mayor Yenni was at
a recent Kenner City Council meeting. I was walking (hobbling, actually) to the
restroom and the Mayor was walking towards me from the restroom. Our conversation
went like this:
ME: “How you doing Mayor Yenni?”
MAYOR YENNI: “Good. Never better.”
And that was it.
The Mayor didn’t ask how my leg was progressing, how my
family is, or even take 10 seconds out of his walk back to the Council meeting
to make small talk with a Kenner resident.
And, that’s ok. If you know me, you know I’m not really good
at small talk anyway.
At last night’s Kenner City Council meeting, Councilmen Joe
Stagni and Gregory Carroll offered an amendment to defer a Resolution setting
in motion the process for the state to approve almost $47 Million in debt for
the City of Kenner. Several citizens, myself included, implored the Council to
poll their residents and get more input BEFORE seeking this action. Mayor Yenni
was livid and, sadly for the people of Kenner, Councilmen Stagni and Carroll
could not get 2 more of their colleagues to see that representing their
citizens and getting input from them, was important enough to wait two more
council meetings and the Amendment failed by a 5-2 vote.
More on the deferral in my next post.
Given what I know about Mayor Yenni’s temperament, it was
not surprising for me to hear him on WRNO 99.5fm this morning, once again
blasting people who don’t agree with him.
Like a three-year-old child whose mother won’t give him
another cookie, Mayor Yenni always gets defensive and takes things personally,
so much so that his voice increases in pitch and he sounds like he’s whining.
Well, on the radio this morning, Mayor Yenni was whining
about Councilman Stagni.
Now Councilman Stagni is my councilman and, while we agree
on many issues, he will be the first to tell you that we’ve also disagreed on
many too. But, we still talk in a courteous manner, Councilman Stagni returns
my phone calls and emails when I call/email about an issue, and I think that we have a
mutual respect for each other.
I think I have that same give and take relationship with
several (although far from all) elected officials.
But, back to Mayor Yenni on the radio.
Lamenting last night’s council meeting and the Amendment
offered by Councilman Stagni, Mayor Yenni said, "And everything I try to
do he tries to fight me on it.”
So, let’s turn back the clock and look at some of the things
recently that Mayor Yenni and Councilman Stagni have disagreed on:
-
Mayor Yenni’s plan to double property taxes. I
also disagreed with this as did Councilmen Carroll and Kent Denapolis and 60 – 70% of the voters in Kenner.
Sorry Mayor Yenni: Gotta score this one for Councilman Stagni.
STAGNI
1 – YENNI 0.
-
The Charter Change Banning Yenni’s Political
Appointees from participating in political campaigns. Mayor Yenni was against
this; the Council voted 7 – 0 to put it on the ballot; I along with 70% of the voters in Kenner
approved it. Sorry again Mayor Yenni. Score another for Councilman Stagni.
STAGNI
2 – YENNI 0.
-
The Charter Change that required Council
approval and public input for all contracts valued at over $100,000 per year.
Yenni was against this one too; the Council again voted 7 – 0 to put it on the
ballot; and, again, I along with 70%
of the voters in Kenner approved it. Hate to keep saying it but, score
another for Councilman Stagni.
FINAL SCORE: STAGNI 3 – YENNI 0.
The point of this exercise wasn’t to show that Councilman Stagni is correct on every issue. As I mentioned, Councilman Stagni and I have had some knockdown dragouts over Mayor Yenni’s plan (which Councilman Stagni supported) to give Yenni’s political appointees $200,000 a year in salary increases under the guise of “Auto and Cell Phone Allowances” and several other issues.
Had the Auto/Cell Phone Allowance issue also been put to a vote of the people of
Kenner, I’m sure it too would have been defeated by the same 70 – 30% margin, if not more.
No, the point of this exercise is to show that there’s
nothing wrong with a Councilman going against the grain and representing the
interests of his constituents. Councilmen Stagni and Carroll should be
applauded, and the other 5 Councilmembers should look hard in the mirror
because not only did they not want to slow this process down and get input from
the people, they’ve done little to nothing to inform their constituents about
Mayor Yenni’s plan to increase the city’s debt by 32% and approve the largest
debt issue in the history of the City of Kenner without a public vote or any
public input.
There’s nothing wrong with going against the Mayor when you
are on the side of the people you represent. This is America, after all.
You see, when Mayor Yenni puts things to a public vote in
Kenner, he loses. A Mayor running for re-election next year can’t keep losing.
So, if you can’t win, you change the rules.
Thankfully, since there was public outcry at last night’s
council meeting, Mayor Yenni has scheduled a Town Hall meeting to discuss his
2030 Vision on Wednesday night at 7:30pm at the Kenner Pavillion.
Just so you know, I had to get the information from WRNO
because the Mayor doesn’t email me anymore. Guess he doesn’t want my readers to
attend.
Let’s hope that Mayor Yenni arrives on time for this meeting. If I were you, I would arrive early too. I’m sure that Mayor Yenni
will have all of his political appointees and friends there hogging the chairs.
