Friday, October 21, 2016

What Size Shoe Does Dominick Impastato Wear?



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I hope that Kenner District 5 Councilman Dominick Impastato has small feet because, if he doesn’t, his mouth is surely hurting today since his foot was squarely in his mouth at last night’s Kenner City Council meeting.

During the public comment period for the resolution requesting that former Kenner Mayor and current Jefferson Parish Sexual Predator-In-Chief Mike Yenni resign, Impastato got a little hot under the collar at a suggestion by Kenner Mayoral candidate Al Morella that the resolution should have come up at the last council meeting. Morella inferred that the reason the resolution didn’t come up sooner was that several members of the Council were dragging their feet because they owed Yenni for their seats.

The Council, without much discussion other than from the resolution’s author District 1 Councilman (and Mayoral candidate himself) Greg Carroll, passed the resolution unanimously.

While Al’s inference of foot dragging may have been  in error (the Council prudently waited until Yenni admitted to sexting a 17-year-old Minor while Yenni was Mayor of Kenner), Impastato vehemently denied any allegiance to Yenni.

“I owe Mike Yenni nothing”, Impastato said.

What???

While Impastato, who has been rumored to be jockeying to move up to the Jefferson Parish Council seat if Ben Zahn wins the Mayor job, may be attempting to create as much distance as possible between himself and Yenni, the fact is that Impastato owes EVERYTHING to Yenni.

To be fair, Impastato did campaign hard for his seat on the Council.

However, Impastato has long been a friend of Yenni and was handpicked and groomed by Yenni.

Despite never employing more than 5 people in his entire life, Impastato was named Chairman of Yenni’s Economic Development Committee. By the way, whatever happened to that committee? I guess when they recruited ZERO businesses to Kenner, created ZERO jobs for Kenner, sat back as The Esplanade crumbled and Rivertown wilted, their job was done and there was no need for them to continue.

Or, perhaps more accurately, since they maxed out Kenner’s credit card by taking on the largest debt in Kenner’s history to fund public art and aesthetic projects like bike paths, they fulfilled Yenni’s mission of providing for Millions of Dollars in no-bid contracts for Yenni’s campaign contributors, many of whom subsequently donated to a then-unknown Dominick Impastato in his city council campaign.

In addition, Yenni had Impastato speak at several public meetings regarding Yenni’s 2030 Plan, furthering Impastato’s profile and name recognition.

Yenni also hosted and attended fundraisers for Impastato as Yenni did for other members of Yenni’s Consensus Team including District 2 Councilman (and current Acting Mayor) Mike Sigur, District 4 Councilman Lenny Cline, formere Councilman-At-Large Keith Conley, and current Councilwoman-At-Large and Mayoral candidate Maria DeFrancesch.

District 3 Councilman, and also a Mayoral candidate, Keith Reynaud, also benefited from his relationship with Yenni (and Zahn before Zahn became a Mayoral candidate himself).

Cline, DeFrancesch and Reynaud were appointed to the council when no one ran against them. Having Yenni’s endorsement, access to campaign funding and support (as well as threats of retribution if anyone were bold enough to run against Yenni’s Consensus Team) led many to decide to not run for the City Council seats.

I bring this up because EVERYONE on the Kenner City Council,  except for Greg Carroll, owes their seat (or a large portion of it), to Mike Yenni.

Everyone except Greg Carroll.

Now that things have taken a turn and the people of Kenner and Jefferson Parish have learned that Mike Yenni is not quite the person he portrayed himself to be (something you knew long ago if you’ve been reading this blog), everyone is trying to save their own political lives and separate themselves from Yenni.

As voters, we can’t let that happen. For us to be clean and restore our faith in government, those close to Yenni like Zahn, Impastato, Sigur, Cline, DeFrancesch and others, need to be purged along with Yenni.

Local and Parish Government needs to be given a Mike Yenni Enema (no jokes about Yenn’s sexual orientation but I really couldn’t think of a better term than enema). How about “Clensing”.

That might work – a Mike Yenni Clensing.

But, let’s get back to Impastato.

So, you’re handpicked and groomed by Yenni, you have access to Yenni’s campaign contributors, you use Yenni’s campaign manager, Yenni fundraises for you and raises your profile in the community, and you claim to owe Mike Yenni nothing?

How does that work Dominick?

Anyone with half a brain knew that you would try to bury the Yenni resolution and you were pressuring members of the council to vote on it without any commentary.

In fact, Lenny Cline, appointed At-Large Councilman Brian Brennan and Acting Mayor Mike Sigur said NOTHING.

That’s right.

ZIP. ZILCH. NADA.

Not a word from three of the seven Kenner City Councilmen.

For their parts, DeFrancesch (who was suffering from a sore throat) and Reynaud said very litte, but they did speak. I don’t know if they felt guilty due to their participation in Yenni’s schemes or why they said so little.

In fact, Reynaud spoke more about improper political signs and the lack of enforcement by Sigur and Code Enforcement Director Stephen Petit (a Ben Zahn supporter) than he did about Yenni sexting a Minor while Mayor of Kenner.

As I mentioned, even Impastato didn’t address Yenni’s immoral actions as Mayor reserving his indignation for Morella’s comment about the time delay of the resolution.

And that’s sad.

As citizens, we should all be disgusted by Yenni’s actions. Yenni certainly was elected and reelected as Mayor and elected Parish President so that he could have free range to use his position of authority to hookup with our children.

As Kenner residents, we should be equally disgusted that our elected and appointed officials were not equally disgusted at Yenni’s actions while Kenner Mayor.

At least, they weren’t disgusted enough to publicly comment and show that the actions of Yenni are not acceptable.

While I appreciate Councilman Reynaud praying for Yenni and his family, as we all should, no one on the Council adequately expressed that Yenni’s actions were disgraceful and have made Kenner (and Jefferson Parish) an embarrassment.

Thankfully, as he has done in the past, Councilman Carroll stood up and did the right thing.

Thankfully, someone on the Kenner City Council did.

While Councilman Impastato can act indignant in front of the TV cameras and try to distance himself from Yenni, we shouldn’t allow him to.

During his exchange with Impastato, Al Morella said several times, “If the shoe fits Councilman”.

Well Dominick, I think we’ve shown that the shoe fits very well.

Now, how does it taste?